The photographer Zahrin Kahlo is constantly posting pictures which have inspired her to her Facebook page: self-portraits, series about women and so on. First discovered on social networks, the Moroccan public discovered Kahlo’s work through the series Chronique d’une jeune arabe, exhibited at the Yakin & Boaz gallery in 2013.
Since then, she has been exhibited throughout Morocco and Europe. In 2014, in Marrakech, selections from her series Liseli were included in the group exhibition Entre-je organized by the Galerie 127. In Casablanca, she exhibited Fakarouni at the Yakin & Boaz Gallery, and was an artist-in-residence at the European Festival of Nude photography in Baux de Provence.
When asked why she began taking pictures, Kahlo explained that it was to, “Give concrete expression to my imagination. I lack the power of speech. Photographs are the only way to free myself and tell my story.”
These intertwining series are like a private diary about the female body and the sacred, largely inspired by Orientalist imagery. In her biography, she asserts her different origins: Hispanic, Berber, Italian by adoption. Her journey is enriched with references, different cultures and iconographies with a youth marked by travel between continents.
Her real name is not Zahrin Kahlo. It’s a pseudonym created through several anecdotes and influences. “Kahlo,” in homage to the great Frida, the inexhaustible source of inspiration for women artists. “Zahrin” for a trip to Iran, where her first name, Zarha, was transformed by the people she met. And also because she is a big fan of the artist Shirin Neshat, and took the name from the character Zarrin from the film Women without men.
In 2009, after studying literature at university, she took an interest in photography during trips to Iran and Turkey. Then she began studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Milan, with a special focus on Orientalist photographers. She graduated in 2013 and has since split her time between Marrakech and Milan.
Her latest works range from pictorial research, as in her Portraits orientalistes, to the disturbing, erotic images found in the series Haram and Femmes d’Alger, where we see body parts, close-up and parted lips.
