Princess Hijab is an anonymous female[1]street artist working primarily in Paris, France. Her art centres on veiling the main characters of subway advertisements using black paint.[2][3]
Work
Guerrilla art is innocent and criminal, ancient and dystopian, intimate and political. I chose the veil because it does what art should do: It challenges, it frightens, and it re-imagines[4] - Princess Hijab
Princess Hijab is recognized as the founder of "hijabism", a movement based on the "hijabizing" or "hijabization" of advertising images; effectively the painting of veils or hijabs over images of models to make it seem like the model is wearing a veil.[2] As such, she is recognized for her images of veiled girls, boys and courting couples on advertising posters.[5]
One of her works, Diam’s Ma France à Moi, is the portrait of the famous French rapper Diam's, covered with a veil using a black marker pen.
Other works by Princess Hijab include the Lafayette series, depicting a model promoting the French department store Galeries Lafayette, wearing a blue, white and red striped top and a black mask over her mouth, and the Dolche series, a series of Dolce & Gabbana adverts representing male models hijabized by the artist.
Media appearances
Though the artist has rarely appeared in mainstream media, she is featured in the Banksy-produced The Antics Roadshow (the name of which parodies the Antiques Roadshow). The artist appeared in a bright, feathered, Carnivale-style costume "hijabizing" models in various fashion industry advertisements at Paris metro train stations. The documentary suggested the artist's work was primarily a protest against French Government efforts to ban the burqa in public[1] though the artist herself has denied this.[6]
