Date of Award
Spring 5-15-2026
Author's Department
Graduate School of Art
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
The work investigates the displacement of the self from a female Arab perspective and the tension between a sacred interior and the masks required to navigate an othered identity. Within this framework, the domestic space is the first political arena—a site where the sacred interior learns to disguise itself through constructed personas and performances of conformity designed to keep household anxieties at bay. I treat the construction of these personas not as an erasure of the self, but as a strategic invisibility; the sacred interior is preserved through suppression rather than repression, held in a state of quiet resistance.
This interior finds presence within alternative spaces—the private sketchbook or the imagined realm—where fragments of identity are collected and reconstructed. Through paintings, and curated miniatures, I reclaim agency by becoming the narrator of the performance, asserting the autonomy to veil and unveil at my own pace.
The surveillance examined here extends beyond the domestic to mirror the broader social and governmental surveillance of the Arab land. The longing to protect one’s identity is heightened by the threat of Western intervention and ongoing geopolitical conflict, which add another complex layer to anxieties of erasure. In this context, the Western gaze is identified as a force more oppressive than the internal cultural gaze, as it directly threatens the safety and memory of one’s Arab identity, land, and the collective self. By navigating these layers of surveillance, the work serves as a site of reparation, cleansing, and decolonizing—asserting that the sacred interior remains whole and autonomous even when it is not overtly visible or reflected in real life.
Language
English
Program Chair
Tiffany Calvert
Thesis Text Advisor
Tiffany Calvert
Thesis Text Advisor
Meghan Kirkwood
Faculty Mentor
Tiffany Calvert
Committee Member
Tiffany Calvert
Committee Member
Heather Bennett
Committee Member
Joe DeVera
Recommended Citation
Almutawa, Zain, "Between Sanctity and Surveillance" (2026). MFA in Visual Art. 42.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_visual_art/42
Artist's Statement
My work investigates the tension between a sacred interior and the masks required to navigate an othered identity. The domestic space serves as the first political arena—a site where the private self learns to disguise itself through constructed personas to keep household anxieties at bay. Such acts of performance are not an erasure of the self, but a form of strategic invisibility; the interior is preserved through suppression rather than repression.
This negotiation of visibility extends to the wardrobe, clothes, and portrayal of honor and glamour. These motifs explore the ways in which the dressed body can become a host to diverse manifestations of the ideals the external world imposes. Treating clothing as a raw material for cultural drag creates a portal to move through roles—such as the performance of the Islamic veil—without feeling entrapped by the image. This allows for navigating an environment while keeping the sacred self protected and intact, even when physically embodying a contrasting perceived identity.
Influence from the occult stems from its engagement with the unseen arts—a language that mirrors the implementation of symbolism and the control of visibility in the work. The occult acknowledges the unseen rather than dismissing it as the other. Similarly, keeping specific fragments hidden within a lockable sketchbook or a vitrine acknowledges the weight of a presence, even when the contents remain physically invisible.
The sketchbook project materializes this alternative space in which I am free to exist on my own terms. This freedom is found when it is kept private- away from the eyes of surveillance. Within this constructed sacred space, I reclaim the unpolished parts of my identity: the dark, the angry, the sarcastic, and the chaotic. It is a space to be raw, outrageous, and an ecologist of desires without the threat of being outed or disowned.
Within this alternative space where visibility is controlled, I thrive in the glitch I create that disrupts the feeling of entrapment by the gaze. Re-casting patterns in a personal, diarist image transforms the power held by the gaze into a power cast back on the world—it reclaims one’s own narrative back to the self. This act of reclaiming the narrative and resisting self-erasure mirrors my stance against macro patterns that go beyond the domestic sphere; I link this to the gaze of political oppressors who attempt to exploit, colonize, entrap, or threaten Arab identity and lands. Such threats often start with the abuse of the gaze—a gaze that seeks to stereotype and flatten the complexity of a culture to exert control and impose its own agendas onto it. This gaze lusts for power by destabilizing marginalized identities, especially when the presence of the marginalized poses a threat of exposing or dismantling the exploitative foundations the oppressor has built its power upon. As the work attains more political dimensions, more is left teased and hidden rather than thoroughly explored for the viewer.