“Memories of Algeria,” a new collection by painter Houria Menaa, has taken center stage since Saturday on the gallery walls of the Baya Mahieddine Gallery at the Moufdi-Zakaria Palace of Culture in Algiers. Open to the public until August 1, this retrospective features 77 recent canvases that illustrate the rich tapestry of the country’s traditions, landscapes, and expressions of identity.
Divided into several distinct themes, the works of the Guelma native offer an immersive journey into the world of historic cities, the Casbah, the Sahara, women, the Tuareg people, and scenes of daily life. The artist delivers a luminous perspective on the Algerian collective memory using a contemporary visual language.
The ten thematic sections draw inspiration from Algeria’s cultural and physical heritage. Menaa’s canvases, vibrant with bright colors and striking luminosity, invite visitors on an introductory voyage that revives “ancestral traditions and the unifying identity of a single, indivisible Algeria,” the artist explains.
Titles such as “Cities of Algeria,” “The Casbah,” “Women of Algeria,” “The Hammams,” “The South,” “Flowers,” “Traditional Women,” “Tuaregs,” “Landscapes,” and “Portraits” span multiple paintings. Together, they reconstruct historical lifestyles, social behaviors, daily scenarios, and long-standing customs linked to antiquity.
Executed in acrylics and mixed media, Menaa’s creations were developed using the techniques of the semi-figurative movement, combined with a modern, purely contemporary creative drive. To best emphasize her subjects, the painter, who functions as a poet of forms and shades, utilizes visual contrast between vivid tones and subtle gradients, all set against a clean, light background.
For younger observers, the diverse pieces in the “Memories of Algeria” collection function as a “bridge and a dialogue between the past and the present,” one attendee remarked.
Born in Guelma in 1943, Menaa is a physician by training and a self-taught painter by passion, having discovered the realm of expression through sketches, shapes, and colors from an early age. Her artistic calling began to surface during the 1990s through several figurative art pieces, before her technique matured into a more modern, contemporary style. Menaa has numerous solo and collective exhibitions to her credit, both within Algeria and internationally, all deeply inspired by the vast and diverse heritage of Algerian culture.