Rajaa Gharbi

Biography

Rajaa A. Gharbi is an international multi-disciplinary artist, poet and sociolinguist born and raised in Tunisia. She trained and worked for seven years as a multimedia artist with The National Puppet Theatre of Tunisia (OTEMA) at both its Ibn Rachiq Arts Center and later at its Rue de Marseille studios of which she was a founding member. There she started translating into an interdisciplinary art form what she had been learning about textile and clothes design from her mother and storytelling from her father-Gharbi’s paternal grandmother was Tunisia’s last king/Bey’s storyteller. She passionately sculpted masks, painted, created costumed, and performed in Tunisia’s prestigious and neighborhood theatres the tige-marionettes characters that she had created with the mentorship of Abdel Haq Khmir, and later with Tahar Jerbi. In 1977 she became Tunisia’s first salaried female puppet theatre artist.

The same year the National Puppet Theatre of Tunisia (OTEMA) hosted performances by the visiting Boulder, Colorado Black Light Puppet Theatre of which Gharbi’s future husband was a leading puppeteer. Gharbi agreed to leave the OTEMA and move with her husband to Morocco with the prenuptial condition that the couple will start its own puppet theatre in Fez, Morocco- The prenuptial condition never materialized.

In Morocco, Gharbi was invited by playwright and international theatre leader Tayeb Saddiki to join as a marionettist and actor the Casablanca Municipal Theatre. A daily commute between Casablanca and Fez where she lived from 1977 to 1982 was impossible. She continued painting and occasionally acting in film. After experimenting in costume design with Swiss German filmmaker Daniel Schmidt she moved to Washington state in 1982. Gharbi established herself and matured in the US both as a painter and a poet, creating artwork in the visual and the literary, mostly in the US. She has also created artworks in Tunisia, Spain, Morocco, Russia and Chile. In 1986 she became the first North African English language poet in the United States to be published and awarded public funding for literary work and was nominated in 2007 for the Seattle Mayor’s Art Award and the Horace Mann Achievement Award. Both her visual art and literary work have been published, presented, critiqued and anthologized by art curators and literary scholars from the US, and overseas with solo and group exhibitions and poetry readings in general and academic settings since 1984. Gharbi has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Applied Communication/fine art and filmmaking from The Evergreen State College and Antioch University in the United States. She is a member of Academy of American Poets, PEN US. She was a former member of the Alumni Advisory Board of Antioch University. She is a founding member of several Northwest art organizations including the Northwest African and African American Artists Association which has branched out into several organizations, and Gallery 110 Seattle (of which she was the Diversity advising board member from 2017 to 2020). She is a member of Puget Sound Group Northwest Artists, Washington’s Center on Contemporary Art, Artist Trust, and Washington Lawyers for the Arts. Gharbi has served as panelist/Juror for national art Fellowships or artist selections. Her paintings are in numerous collections. She has made art contributions to various art organizations, including PONCHO, West Edge Sculpture and Artist Trust.

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Selected Publications and Exhibitions

  • 2006 — Tunisia’s Hannibal Arts and Culture Grant Award for a retrospective art exhibition, presented by H.E. M. Najib Hachana, Ambassador of Tunisia to the United States, Washington, DC.
  • 2011 — Invited feature artist on the U.S. Department of State’s Official Diplomatic Calendar, featuring three paintings.
  • 2018 — Nomination for Tunisia’s National Book Translation Award for From Songs of Bridges / Men Aghani Aljousour, paintings and selected poems (Medali Editions, Tunis, Tunisia).
  • 2012 — Achievement Award, International Arab Women Artists Biennale Conference, Sousse, Tunisia.
  • 1990–2018 — Featured artist and writer on Tunisia’s national television and radio stations, and in Le Maghreb, La Presse, Assahafa, and Le Temps national newspapers; interviews, published paintings, and book covers (1990, 1993, 1994, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2018).
  • 2004, 2006 — NPR featured artist.
  • 1990 — Participant, PBS International Goodwill Arts Festival.
  • 2007 — Featured artist in Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists, fine art and poetry (USA); article and paintings (Dr. Fayeq Oweis, Heinemann).
  • 2015 — The Circle of Departure and Return: A Reading of Songs of Bridges, Paintings, and Poems, critical study by Dr. Fatma Lakhdhar, University of Tunis (Jinanu Alareef, Tunisia).
  • 2012 — Featured poet in We Have Crossed Many Rivers: New Poetry from Africa anthology (Dr. Diké Okoro, Northwestern University, Illinois & Lagos, Nigeria).
  • 2022 — Poetry reading tour across Chile, including Universidad Central de Chile (Santiago), Gabriela Mistral Museum, and Pablo Neruda Museum.
  • 2014 — Featured artist and poet, Moments of Freedom: Revolutionary Art from South Africa, China, and Tunisia, Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut.
  • 2016 — Art residency in Saint Petersburg, Russia, for the exhibition Tell Me More I: Conversation with Filonov.
  • 2021 — Tell Me More II, multidisciplinary exhibition, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington.
  • 2016 — Featured artist and opening gala keynote speaker, Arabic Arts juried group exhibition, Bellevue Art Museum and Bellevue College, Washington.
  • 2019 — Featured artist, Seattle International Art Fair, presented by Gallery110.
  • 2016 — Featured artist, Artist Trust 30th Annual Fundraising Gala.
  • 2006 — The Poetry and Painting of Rajaa Gharbi, scholarly study presented at the Eighth International Symposium on Comparative Literature, Cairo University, Egypt (Dr. Nejib Redouane, University of California, Long Beach).
  • Lecture and presentation on Subversive Compositional Techniques in Art, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
  • Multiple Years — Featured author, Elliott Bay Book Company, Washington State.
  • 2018 — Men Aghani Aljousour / From Songs of Bridges, paintings and selected poems written and translated by Rajaa Gharbi (Medali Editions, Tunis).
  • 2004 — From Songs of a Grasshopper, a book of poems and paintings, partly funded by the King County Washington Arts Commission (Kehna Publications).
  • 2022 — Best Things Washington, essay on the exhibition From Another Impressionism.
  • 2022 — International Gallerie Art Magazine, Mumbai, India.
  • 2021 — Tell Me More II at the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle; essay by Negarra A. Kudumu, Southern Oregon (Artists Resource).
  • 2019 — Seattle International Art Fair online catalogue; painting When the Silence Diacritic Speaks Its Life.
  • 2019 — The PREVIEW Guide to Galleries and Museums, Best Things Washington, The Stranger newspaper, and Visit Seattle; paintings and previews.
  • 2016 — The Raven Chronicles, Journal of Art and Literature (U.S.); review and book cover painting.
  • 2014 — The Seattle Symphony and Chamber Music Live Performances and Poetry Program, featured poet.
  • 2012 — Town Hall, Seattle, Washington.
  • 2011 — Edmonds, Washington Black Box Theatre.
  • 2010 — Seattle Central Library.
  • 2006 — National Public Radio (NPR).
  • 2006 — Alliance Française, Journée Internationale de la Francophonie, and related media coverage.
  • 1996 — Seattle’s Langston Hughes Arts Center.
  • 1994 — The East Glacier Reporter.
  • 1992 — Seattle’s Intiman Theatre.
  • 1992 — Voice of America.
  • 2023 — Rajaa Gharbi: Selected Works, Gallery 110, Seattle.
  • 2022 — From Another Impressionism, paintings, Gallery 110, Seattle.
  • 2021 — Tell Me More II, interactive non-electronic multimedia installations and acrylic paintings, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington.
  • 2020 — Cauldron Delights, acrylic paintings, Gallery 110, Seattle.
  • 2019 — Tell Me More I, interactive non-electronic multimedia installations and acrylic paintings, Gallery 110, Seattle.
  • 2014 — Universal Signs of Life, Seattle Municipal Tower Art Gallery; exhibition curated by Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture.
  • 2013 — Circus and Steady Dancers, Windows Gallery, Seattle.
  • 2011 — Selected Works, Artisans on Taylor Gallery, Port Townsend, Washington.
  • 2006 — Retrospective exhibition presented by H.E. M. Najib Hachana, Ambassador of Tunisia to the United States, Washington, DC.
  • 2026 — Melodies from the Diaspora, Bellevue Art Museum, National African American History Celebration, Washington, group exhibition, featured artist
  • 2025 — Voices Unbound, Bellevue City Hall, Washington; National African American History Celebration group exhibition, featured artist.
  • 2025 — Rajaa Gharbi: Selected Works, guest artist, Art Gallery of SnoValley, Snoqualmie, Washington.
  • 2024 — Member’s Annual Exhibition, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington.
  • 2024 — Rajaa Gharbi: Selected Works, guest artist, Art Gallery of SnoValley, Washington.
  • 2016 — National African American History Month Northwest Group Exhibition, GSA Federal Building Art Space, Portland, Oregon.
  • 2012 — Cairo Biennale, Egypt; paintings and projection.
  • 2010 — Black Palette Fine Art Exhibit, African American Art Museum, Seattle, Washington.
  • 1996 — International Indigenous Synergy Collaborative Works, visual art exhibition at the San Francisco American Indian Contemporary Art Center; the C.M. Russell Museum; the Museum of the Great Plains; and the Montana Historical Society.