Hafez Gallery presents The White Lilies of Marrakech: Women as Timeless Narratives, a solo exhibition by Lana Khayat, running from February 19 to March 25, 2025. Marking the 100th anniversary of the Jardin Majorelle, Khayat’s work engages in a profound dialogue with Morocco’s cultural heritage, intertwining nature, script, and history.
At the core of the exhibition is the white lily, a symbol of resilience and renewal. Khayat presents 100 paintings, each representing a year of the garden’s century-long journey, alongside an immersive installation of 1,000 lilies. Through these works, she honours the strength of women, using the flower not as a decorative element but as a protagonist in a narrative of endurance and transformation.
Khayat’s artistic language blends the structured precision of Tifinagh script with the fluidity of Arabic calligraphy, forming a dynamic interplay between past and present. This fusion of text and nature creates a visual symphony, where memory and identity are expressed through bold strokes and luminous forms.
With The White Lilies of Marrakech, Khayat embraces a new vibrancy in her palette and a more pronounced engagement with script. As Morocco celebrates a century of Jardin Majorelle, her work invites reflection on women’s enduring legacies—rooted in history yet always reaching toward the future.
Interview with Lana Khayat
Your exhibition The White Lilies of Marrakech pays tribute to the 100th anniversary of Jardin Majorelle. How did the garden’s legacy inspire your approach to both subject matter and artistic technique?
Jardin Majorelle is more than just a garden; it is a living archive of cultural history, resilience, and artistic expression. Its centennial legacy provided the perfect backdrop for The White Lilies of Marrakech, as it embodies the themes of memory, transformation, and rootedness that run through my work. The garden’s lush landscapes, carefully cultivated over time, reminded me of the way stories especially those of women, are nurtured and passed down through generations.
Visually, I was drawn to the interplay of structure and fluidity within the garden. This is reflected in my approach, where organic floral motifs coexist with geometric abstraction. Just as Jardin Majorelle is a carefully orchestrated blend of nature and design, my paintings bring together free-flowing botanical forms with the structured precision of Tifinagh script and Arabic calligraphy. The layering of these elements mirrors the layered histories embedded within the garden itself, creating a visual dialogue between past and present, nature and culture, femininity and strength.
The white lily serves as a central motif in your work, symbolising resilience and transformation. What drew you to this flower, and how do you see it reflecting the themes of femininity and heritage in your practice?
The white lily is a powerful symbol of endurance, beauty, and renewal, qualities that resonate deeply with the stories of women I seek to honour in my work. Blooming in clusters, these lilies embody collective strength, much like the interconnected narratives of women throughout history. Their cyclical nature, returning with each season, speaks to the continuous evolution of feminine identity, and the way it adapts while remaining deeply rooted in heritage.
Beyond its symbolic meaning, the white lily also serves as a visual metaphor for the balance between delicacy and resilience. Its soft, graceful petals contrast with its firm, unwavering stem, much like the tension between vulnerability and strength that defines so many women’s experiences. In my practice, I use the lily not just as a botanical element but as a storytelling device, one that weaves together themes of femininity, memory, and cultural preservation.
Your work merges Tifinagh script with Arabic calligraphy, creating a dialogue between past and present. How do these textual elements shape the narrative of your paintings, and what role does language play in your artistic identity?
Language, for me, is more than just a means of communication, it is a vessel of history, identity, and resistance. By merging Tifinagh script with Arabic calligraphy, I seek to challenge the notion of language as something static, instead presenting it as fluid, evolving, and deeply expressive. These scripts are not merely written words in my work; they become abstract forms, carrying emotional weight and movement, much like a visual heartbeat running through the paintings.
Tifinagh, as the script of the indigenous Amazigh people, represents a deep ancestral connection, while Arabic calligraphy is rich with artistic and cultural tradition. By intertwining these elements, I create a visual conversation between heritage and transformation, between rootedness and reinvention. The act of writing within my work becomes a way of reclaiming space, of giving voice to the often-unspoken stories of women. In this sense, language in my paintings is not just text, it is presence, rhythm, and resistance, shaping the very essence of my artistic identity.
About Lana Khayat
Lana Khayat is a contemporary artist whose work merges nature, heritage, and abstraction. Splitting her time between Spain and the Arabian desert, she draws inspiration from these contrasting landscapes. Born into an artistic lineage, her great-grandfather, Mohamad Suleiman Khayat, was a master craftsman whose Ajami restorations are in institutions like the Met and Shangri La. As the first female artist in her family, Lana redefined expectations. A graduate of AUB and SVA, with experience at the Guggenheim, she explores resilience and transformation through the lily motif, Tifinagh and Phoenician scripts, exhibiting internationally and celebrating women’s empowerment through her art.
Location: Hafez Gallery, JAX District, Riyadh
Dates: February 19 to March 25, 2025