She came to Morocco to open a bakery. Now she makes a living as an artist

In a profile published on October 2, Creative Boom looks back at this change of direction. After studying business and training in pastry-making in Lille, Myriam chose to settle in Tangier. The construction work left her time to return to an old passion: drawing.

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Her Moroccan project dated back to her teenage years. She wanted to open a pastry shop with her sister and live in the country. In an interview with It’s Nice That in 2022, Anaëlle Myriam Chaaib spoke about an early experience in the restaurant business in Chefchaouen. At the time, she painted the region’s landscapes to decorate their establishment.

Customers took an interest in her paintings. She began posting them on Instagram, where their success helped her develop her career as a painter. Walks in northern Morocco provided her with new subjects: shops, crafts, food. She photographed details of tiles, signs and packaging so she could later incorporate them into her compositions.

Cakes make their way into her work

Pastry-making remains a strong presence in her work. A strawberry Swiss roll becomes a textile creation; lemon tarts appear beneath a pastry chef’s piping bag. Her ceramics, too, take unexpected shapes, like this teapot decorated with a fried egg.

To turn her observations into paintings, Myriam starts with sketches, then redraws them in pencil before working in gouache or acrylic. She explained this method to TheArtGorgeous in 2022, while also preparing Maison Citron with her sister, a place in Tangier that brings together treats and art.

Her landscapes depict, among other things, a lush Morocco dotted with whitewashed houses, women and donkeys. She wants to make this portrayal known beyond images of dunes and camels, and the stereotypes about the country she heard growing up in France.