Shahzia Sikander

When finding a definition for graphics the only phrase that comes to my discernment is the expression of unitarys creative skill and fancy. The word imagination encounters out this thought of liberalness and communicativeness to me and therefore when backwash a large flick, unity immediately gets raddled towards it and tries to create a connection with the depiction. Shahzia Sikander was an contrivanceist who was cognise for her embrace of miniaturist paintings in the Indo-Persian style.To m any(prenominal), miniature paintings pull inmed somewhat inhibitory because of the space present for the dodgeists to express themselves and are a wish looked at as a faded literary genre that had more to do with craft and technique than true(a) expression(Bhaha, Homi). But according to me, Sikanders nontextual matter successfully portrayed her thoughts and helped us gain experience slightly her culture.What attri scarcelyes to making her paintings so acknowledged is the r epresentation her ardeucerk embodies not only her culture but also works across diverse ethnical references Hindu, Christian, Classical, mythological and folkloric (Rachel Kent). When talking about elements of narrative in artwork, I feel that genius is referring to the behavior in which the particular artwork is portrayed and the techniques that the operative has utilize to portray his/her skill and imagination. cover each of Sikanders artwork, the one element that is seen as having and influence on all her works of art is her cultural background.Her bridal of the miniaturist tradition took place while she was studying at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan where this form of art was seen as an unconventional choice that conjured associations with imperialism on one hand and, on the other, deeply rooted local traditions of fabrication-telling and popular mythology (Rachel Kent). champion of the reasons that it felt care story telling and popular mythology to me was because when viewing each painting, it felt wish one was viewing a rogue from a book.The paintings looked flat the likes of a foliate but at the same time contained degrees in spite of appearance which gave them sense. One particular artwork of hers that gives me this impression is composition the written (2000). In all her works and this one in particular one bottomland see how she explored compositional constructs such as repetition, the placement of discolour across the surface of the work, the use of a flattened, lade perspective and the relationship between image and beleaguer (Rachel Kent). Repetition is seen a lot in pen the indite, whether it is the repetition of certain symbols of just design.The roughly important factor to keep in mind when analyzing Sikanders artwork is the size of each piece. apiece miniature painting is not more than 8 x 51/2 inches, which is just like analyzing a painting that has been printed on an A4 sized paper. Viewing a painting so small peck make us see the artist in a completely incompatible light because as the audience, we are usually not utilise to organism able to glance at a self-coloured painting at one time, and by this I mean that our eye are usually used to moving around, moving to different corners of the painting since we unite the size of majority of paintings to being large.When viewing make-up the Written for the first time, the first thing that caught my eyes was the repetition of horses in the boarder. Since I am of Hindu religion, the whole painting felt like Sikander was onerous to tell her audience a story about the Hindu culture. The horse is linked to the Hindu god Varuna that shows how Sikander is incorporating mythology in her artwork. Also, the focus of this painting awaits to be the two figures that are placed somewhat in the mall of the painting, which to me represents the Hindu gods Krishna and Radha.Considering that this is a miniature painting, it doesnt se em small or simple in any instruction because there is so much loss on in it. The foggy destiny in the center is what got me thinking because in the article evoke Immensity, Rachel Kent mentioned, historically, the circle invited a range of associations. It is at once a complete unit, unbroken at any point so without a tooth root or demolition a spiritually changed symbol across cultures, associated with the continuity of the life cycle.But I felt like by using the circle to blur out the faces she was in some way referring to the problems that Muslim women have to face everyday. In an converse by Homi k Bhabha, Sikander mentions that even for her such things as the veil that she uses a lot in her work, cadaver exotic. She states that the first time that she put one in her work everyone reacted strongly. So when looking at the blurred faces in her painting I felt like she was trying to portray how Muslim women are force to hide their faces from the rest of the world. Images in spite of appearance images, borders within borders all form active constituents in Sikanders art of transformation(Rachel Kent). This technique of Sikanders is seen in a lot of her artworks especially in Writing the Written where at ones first glance of the painting it seems like there are three different frames to it and this to me makes the painting look layered and gives it some form of depth. The out most layer is that of the border with the horses imprinted on it, the gage layer consists of the two blurred figures and the third layer is that of the backdrop.The tiny blue circles that start of big on the outside most layer and then piecemeal become smaller as they move towards the interior most frame better represent this depth that Sikander is trying to portray. According to me it is quite difficult to go bad every aspect of Sikanders paintings because there ceaselessly seems to be so much going on. One of the reasons that I feel this way is also because of the way she represents movement in her paintings. In Writing the Written, the movement is solely portrayed by the dissimilar horses.First, the way she draws them in different directions on the outer most border and then by the angiotensin-converting enzyme house that is shown jumping on the top unexpended edge of the painting. At first, when I read the championship Writing the Written I didnt inevitably understand why she would give the painting that notice but then I started notice the indite on the outer most border which seemed like Arabic to me. In an interview Sikander says, The text becomes more like horses or theres the confidential information of movement, and that aspect is my experience of reading the Koran where I would read it with no particular understanding because I was a child.I could read Arabic, but I couldnt understand it and the holding of it is this amazing visual memory where the violator of written words supersedes everything else (Bhabha, Homi). One can se e that Sikander used the Arabic words for the beauty of the language rather than the meaning behind the words. done these minor details we can see how Sikander incorporates different cultures her painting rather than being this traditional artist that many consider her to be.Seeing that Sikanders artwork consisted of so many traditional figures and symbols, many considered her artwork as that of a traditional Muslim artist who I trying to portray the different between the easternmost and West to her audience. But seeing how she incorporated cultures such as Islamic, Arabic and Hindu in her painting Writing the Written, it seems like she is trying to bring together the difference between the East and the East, the nigh difference, the intimacy of difference that can exist within any culture (Rachel Kent).It took me a while to understand the complexity of her miniature paintings, but in the end I feel that they are as expressive and creative as any other large painting because of t he addition of intricate details and the internalization of various cultures. Bibliography Bhabha, Homi. ESSAY THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY. SHAHZIA SIKANDER. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. . Rachel Kent, informal Immensity Shahzia Sikanders Multi-Dimensional Art, Shahzia Sikander, pp. 11-25.