The Barber of Alexandria
Oil On Canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2025.
What happens when you paint yourself into a memory you never lived—but have carried your whole life?
A child peers through the doorway of a bustling 1950s barbershop in Alexandria, Egypt—except she was never really there.
At the heart of this painting is a black-and-white photograph of my grandfather working in his barbershop in 1950s Alexandria—a city that served as a temporary refuge for many displaced Armenians. I enlarged the photo and expanded its borders, adding myself as a young girl looking in. This act bridges past and present. The introduction of color infuses the scene with a sense of nostalgic reverence, reimagining a moment I never experienced but feel deeply connected to.
This painting explores intergenerational trauma, nostalgia, and cultural identity within the Armenian diaspora. As the daughter of immigrants and the granddaughter of Armenian Genocide survivors, I have long navigated the tension between my birthplace, Quebec, and an ancestral homeland that no longer exists as it once did. My work transforms fragmented family histories into a vivid, enduring archive.
The painting speaks to the fragility of memory and the weight of lost histories. Oral stories—often the only connection to the past—shift over time, leaving me questioning what I truly know. Yet with each brushstroke, I assert the resilience of those who survived displacement. This work is both an act of preservation and an attempt to heal inherited wounds, transforming grief into something lasting and deeply human.
Through this painting, I invite viewers to reflect on their own connections to heritage, loss, and belonging—to bridge the space between what was lost and what still remains.
Exhibitions that featured The Barber of Alexandria:
(Un)Familiar Spaces was a juried student exhibition that brings together emerging artists exploring the fluid boundary between memory and place. Hosted at WIP Works, the show invites viewers into spaces both intimate and uncanny—where nostalgia, displacement, and personal history converge.
Marie Khediguian’s The Barber of Alexandria was selected to be shown alongside a dynamic lineup of talented artists. Her work contributes to the exhibition’s reflection on how memory transforms the spaces we once knew—be they homes, shops, or interior landscapes—into layered, sometimes surreal reconstructions.