Tucked into a quiet side street in Tunis’s industrial El Kram district, visitors will find artist Dora Dalila Cheffi’s latest exhibition at the Selma Feriani Gallery. Titled “A Never-Ending Masquerade,” the exhibition unfolds through vivid portraits, richly coloured tableaux and intimate interpretations of everyday Tunisian life. Figures exist both alone and alongside one another, positioned within carefully composed settings layered with references to local culture.
These references to Tunisia feel entirely natural given Cheffi’s own story. Born in 1990 to Finnish and Tunisian parents, she spent her childhood and early adulthood in Finland, where she studied at Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture. After graduating, she relocated to Tunis, initially exploring videography before also expanding into painting and installations.
Those early years in Tunis also established the visual language that would become synonymous with Cheffi’s work. Brightly coloured interiors, generous dining tables and traditional dishes appeared repeatedly across her paintings, transforming personal memories into reflections on collective identity. “I focused on these scenes because this was what was familiar for me,” the artist explains. “During my childhood, I did not experience much in Tunisia, because all my summers were spent at home, with my family. So a lot of what I remember are tables heaped with food.”
Yet as those paintings attracted increasing attention, they also prompted criticism. “There was a little bit of backlash,” Cheffi explains. “Some people said that I was Westernising these scenes or orientalising them. Others would say I was not even Tunisian because I did not grow up here.”
What had once felt instinctive suddenly became something she questioned. “I had come back to Tunisia hoping to be accepted – so I took the feedback badly at the time,” Cheffi recalls. “Afterwards I developed this fear of appropriating my own culture, so I withdrew from painting those kinds of table scenes.”
Years later, “A Never-Ending Masquerade” marks a return. Created during a two-month residency at Selma Feriani Gallery, the exhibition sees Cheffi revisit the dining table through a series of three paintings collectively titled “Another Food Scenery.”
