A Contemporary Spin on Eastern Miniature Painting (Shahzia Sikander) | Art21

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(water drips)

SHAHZIA SIKANDER: There's something about

process, the miniature process of painting

in this scale, primarily,

which keeps it in control.

I'm basically staining the paper

and it has to be a very even stain.

It's slow, and you have to

keep the edge of the tea really, sort of,

always in flow, so that you just drip the

whole edge down steadily.

It's very meditative

and there's a sense of familiarity,

because a lot of years have gone in here.

(rubbing paper)

One thing I've learned is respect for

tradition and respect for patience

(laughs) because you just cannot achieve

anything...
You can't achieve a painting if

you don't... You need time.

Time is the key.

I can't do a show and prepare a body of

work in a year. I need three to four years

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Miniature painting comes out of book

illustration, manuscript painting...

It's an old art form.

All the strange, stacked-up perspective,

interior spaces and suggestions of

windows and doors, which suggest the

outside world or the spiritual world, or

some notion of perfection.

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That kind of jewel-like translucency that

comes through is only because you have a

discipline behind it.

(paper rubbing)

It takes many, many layers - at least ten

to twenty layers of different colour - to

build it up. You have to be very careful,

because if your brush is loaded with too

much water, you'll lift off the earlier

layers of pigment also, because they're

not sealed. So, it's practice.

Sometimes, when I'm not in practice,

all ten years of experience doesn't mean
a thing! (laughs)

When we were studying in school in

Pakistan, my teacher used to have us sit

on the floor on white sheets and you had

to leave your shoes outside.

Everything was very precise and very clean

and very minimal.

You worked on your work and did eye
exercises. You kept your work at least

a foot away from your eyes. It was very

methodical. It was very ritualistic, also.

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I feel like why I loved miniature painting

early on... For me, it was painting.

I was looking and understanding the formal

sensibility of painting - except I was not

painting on canvas, I was painting on
paper with a particular set of materials.

But it was all about surface, palette,
form, composition, stylization...

And self-expression came later.

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A lot of my work is deeply personal and

drawn on memory.

If you look at this particular border,

it's called 'Writing the Written'.

Here, the text becomes more like horses.

There's a suggestion of movement.

That aspect is my experience of reading

the Quran, where I would read it with no

particular understanding because I was a
child. I could read Arabic but I couldn't

understand it. The memory of it is this
amazing visual memory where the beauty of

the written word supersedes everything
else. The meaning is there, but it's not

just the meaning - it's the ability of the

written text to take you
to that other level.

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My whole purpose of taking on miniature
painting was to break the tradition,

to experiment with it,
to find new ways of making meaning,

to question the relevance of it.

(paper rustles)

The starting point in all my work,

whether it's small or it's large,

actually begins as simple drawings, which

are done on transparent tissue paper.

(paper rustles)

A lot of the images that exist in my work

were happening because I was interested in

subverting Hindu with Muslim
and Muslim with Hindu.

Having grown up as a Muslim in Pakistan,

I didn't have that much information about
Hindu mythology. When I came here,

I realized that these were the things
which still interested me.

(paper rustles)

I was looking at the idea of the

Hindu goddess. It didn't matter how

many hands it had, just the notion that
it was the female body with several hands

was important. But the goddess had a very
specific face. Here, I was stripping off

the face and putting a headdress, like the

veil, on top of it. Yet the veil is on
top of a Hindu goddess.

Not to underestimate what's
behind the veil.

The miniatures bring the word 'veil' into

the equation. It kind of connects you to
a Muslim identity, or a woman's identity.

These are very loaded issues to take on,

because anything and everything

associated with Islam is either terrorism
or oppression for women.

Culturally, it's not my experience.

My grandparents, my parents... Everybody
was very, very progressive,

very supportive people.

My grandfather was very encouraging
towards careers for women - for everybody.

All the girls in the family did something
with their lives.

SIKANDER'S MOTHER: But then I was more
keen... "If she's going to the National

College of Art, then she might as well do
architecture, which has scope." You know,

when she said Fine Arts, one was a bit...

You know, at the most, you just hang
a few paintings in the house...

Whether you have a future or not...
(BOTH LAUGH)

- So I was skeptical about that...
- (SHAHZIA) Sorry!

(machinery whirs)

(rustling)

(SHAHZIA) This type of work for me was

just the opposite of doing
miniature painting.

(machinery whirs)

(paper rustles)

This particular installation is much,
much more spontaneous

and it's always a challenge, because

the decisions made are fast.

It involves my entire body. I'm

working within the space and I'm up and

down the ladders and I'm painting,

and everything kind of happens from
start till end within four to five days.

So there's a certain energy which comes out.

(paper rustles)

There is a certain sense of a low relief,

where several drawings have been hung
on top of each other.

(paper slides)

There's no intention to hide anything.

Everything is very visible.

The paper is transparent.

It flows, it moves...

The idea comes out of this whole

relationship to veiling and
revealing.

(distant footsteps, paper rustles)

I'm always taking photographs, doing

sketches or taking notes.

Then, I carry them wherever I go.

I brought so much stuff from Pakistan

and then so much stuff from Texas,

and every time I sit to do some work,

all of it is opened up.

(machinery whirs)
(switch clicks)

For me, it's always like these
divine circles.

(laughs)
You know, you go and you experience

something, and you come back right where

you started.

When I'm working large and I paint

and do murals, the next thing is: always

I come back to miniature painting.

I can hate miniature for a while,

because it's frustrating,
for all the different reasons

of doing something so labor-intensive

which takes years to make.

It's always like, 'Why do I do this?'

And I'll let go, and I'll do
something else,

but I always come back to it.

Maybe because the sheer act of doing it

gives me a certain sort of peace.

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