Shahzia Sikander (B. 1969)

'As a student [at the Rhode Island School of Design] I remember people not giving me much feedback because they felt they didn't know the proper way to address my work. It's not that people in Pakistan know better; perhaps a handful of art historians may know all the styles and motifs I am using, I am playing with things that happened many, many years ago, over which nobody has ownership and to which anybody has access. It is not specific to Pakistani culture.
I am very committed to understanding the miniature tradition much better. There has not been a lot of good critical writing about it. In that respect, for me, there's a lot of freedom, because you're navigating things that have never been addressed. But at the same time, I feel that there's a lot of miniature painting that can't be translated - that can't be explained in words or expressed in another visual language - and I like that aspect. Any translation also reveals a consciousness of who is going to consume the picture, so there is already a given that the audience needs an explanation of the picture, that their own interpretation is not trustworthy' Shahzia Sikander