Houria Niati

Born in 1948 in Khemis Miliana, near Algiers, the capital of Algeria, Houria Niati earned a diploma in community work specializing in visual arts and music. Houria Niati has been living and working in London since 1979, where she studied at the Camden Art Center and Croydon College of Art. Like many other Algerians of her generation, Niati lived part of her childhood under French occupation, and toward the end of the war for independence, was a witness to French cruelties and the heroic resistance of Algerian people. Houria Niati's works, mostly paintings and installations, have been featured in several group and solo exhibitions. She participated in Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World, an exhibition initiated at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, in 1994, and toured different cities in the United States. She also took part in the 4X4 exhibition at the Harris Museum in Preston, United Kingdom in 1991.

Two of her recent installations--No to the Torture, based on deconstructing Delacroix's famous painting The Women of Algiers; and Bringing Water from the Fountain Has Nothing Romantic About It, in which she explores the orientalists' images and constructs in popular post cards based on photographs from the French Colonial period in Algeria--are composed of a series of painting and other media mixed with a vibrant environment of sound and color. These are accompanied further by recitation of expressionistic poetry and performances of song by Niati herself, who was trained as a singer in Andalusian Sha'bi and Rai traditions. Houria also uses synthesizers, sound recordings, and special light effects to create a theatrical atmosphere and a vibrant magical environment of sound, body movement, and color.