Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Shahzia Sikander is a Pakistani national, born in Lahore. Working in drawing, painting, animation, installation, and video, Sikander’s work employs ideas that are often subversive and polemical in nature. Her process-based work is concerned with examining the forces at stake in contested cultural and political histories.
Shahzia SikanderHomage to Adrienne Rich, who said the connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet Series, 4, 2019 Ink and gold leaf on paper
Shahzia SikanderThe Perennial Gaze, 2018 Glass mosaic mounted on plywood in brass frame
Shahzia SikanderSinging Sphere I, 2014 Ink, gouache, gold leaf on paper
Shahzia SikanderIn-Verse, 2017 Screened oil based paint and hand painted pigment
Shahzia SikanderTitle tbc, 2017 Screened oil based paint and hand painted pigment
Shahzia SikanderPathology of Suspension #8, 2005 Ink and gouache on prepared paper
Ocula Conversation Shahzia Sikander Artist, Pakistan and New York From being the first in a pioneering group of artists who breathed new life into the ossified tradition of Mughal-era miniature painting, Shahzia Sikander has left a trail in gouache across genres and cultures, gathering an astonishing number of accolades along the way. Still smiling from what looked to be an exhilarating exhibit of her...
Related Press SHAHZIA SIKANDER AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Asian Art Newspaper : 1 May 2017 Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander (b 1969) has created and installed two site-specific installations commissioned by Princeton University's funding for campus art by living artists. Quintuplet Effect, a painting on glass, and Ecstasy as Sublime, Heart as Vector, a glass, ceramic, and marble mosaic, each continue Sikander's exploration of miniature...
Related Press 'I'm not a journalist': Pakistani neo-miniaturist Imran Qureishi Art Radar Journal : 30 January 2017 Imran Qureshi was born in 1972 and grew up in Hyderabad, Sindh Province before settling in Lahore, where he is still based. Soft-spoken, thoughtful and deeply engaged with the sociopolitical context of his country, Qureshi talks to Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen in a revealing video for the Louisiana Channel, focusing on his exhibition Idea of...
Related Press In conversation with Shahzia Sikander Brooklyn Rail : 2 November 2016 Since moving to the U.S. from Pakistan in the mid-’90s, Shahzia Sikander has pushed through boundaries corroded by decades of multiculturalist rhetoric with an artistic practice that reimagines the connections between Eastern experiences and Western perspectives. Sikander is best known for her early mastery of Indo-Persian miniaturist...
Related Press Frieze Art Fair: nostalgia and discovery Aesthetica : 21 October 2016 With Frieze director Victoria Siddall describing this year’s fair as having a 'sense of discovery', the plethora of art to be found at Frieze London 2016 offered endless opportunities of exploration. The fair experience surpassed the walls of gallery booths, with artistic endeavours revealed across the curated programme of talks and...
