b Chehayeb
MFA ’20 Fine Arts Low-Residency
With my work, I practice imagining the liminal space between consciousness, memory and sensory experiences. I am interested in the fallibility of childhood memories and their effects on the response to visual information, story-telling and the construction of my bi-cultural identity. Using paint and objects, these ideas naturally evolve into abstractions. Images alongside stories and writings, partner to develop a dialogue that is primarily concerned with nostalgia’s mysterious and transfiguring power. The work functions as a bridge between past and present as well as a bridge between my academic disciplines as a writer and painter. In her essay ‘On keeping a notebook”, Joan Didion discusses the irrelevance of facts when recounting a moment or memory, suggesting that what is remembered is just as, if not more, valuable than what was. I look forward to the examination of time in this spirit. My paintings capture, if not the truth, the truest essence of a memory having survived the challenge of growing older, language chasms and more.
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B. Chehayeb is an artist in Brooklyn by way of Boston. She holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BFA in Painting from the University of North Texas with studies in Creative Writing. Her work spans a wide range of media and focuses on the reconstruction of failed memories, specifically memories warped by nostalgia, gender and cultural hybridity. Chehayeb has been awarded residencies with MASS MoCA, the Vermont Studio Center, and most recently the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency Award in Upstate New York. In addition to being a finalist for the Hopper Prize Grant, Chehayeb was awarded the New York City Redbull Arts Microgrant in 2020. Her works have been published and exhibited both nationally and internationally including Maake Magazine, Art Maze Magazine and The Hopper Prize Journal.
