Doris Bittar
Interdisciplinary artist Doris Bittar explores shared historical legacies through the transformation of patterns and decorative motifs. Bittar states that patterns are evidence of migratory cultural DNA that pivot and mutate in tandem with the history of human migration. Bittar exhibits internationally, and collaborates with artists, musicians, and poets to integrate image, language, movement, and sound. Her art is housed in several museums in North America, Europe and the Arab World. Bittar was born in Baghdad, Iraq to Lebanese and Palestinian parents who immigrated to New York when she was a child. Bittar received her BFA from the State University of New York and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. She taught at the University of California San Diego, the American University of Beirut, among others and was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2017. She is a member of Arab Amp, and a founding member of Gulf Labor. Bittar authored over 50 essays, opinion pieces, and reviews on traditional and contemporary Arabic calligraphy, art and politics, film, and poetry. Bittar’s lifelong commitments to civil rights, labor rights, justice and peace includes founding Teach & Learn Literacy-TaLL, an English as a second language program for Syrian refugees. She is currently on the San Diego Union-Tribune Advisory Board amplifying Arab American voices and is the Southern California Organizer for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee-ADC.