Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander was born in 1969 in Lahore, Pakistan, and currently lives in New York. At the National College of Arts in Lahore, Sikander specialized in traditional Indian miniature painting which became the core of her early practice. While becoming an expert in this anachronistic, technique- driven art form, she imbued it with personal contexts and history to create "open-ended possibilities" and blending the Eastern focus on precision and methodology with a Western emphasis on creative, subjective expression.
Emerging from an interest in post-partition politics, Sikander explores both sides of the Hindu and Muslim "border" often combining imagery from both traditions-such as the Muslim veil and the Hindu multi-armed goddess in a single painting, thereby creating common histories for both and emphasizing similarities rather than difference. This is a strategy which she also applies to art history by the juxtaposition of minimalist forms of repetition and obliteration with historic forms of calligraphy and miniature. This publication provides an overview of Sikander's practice up to 2006