Lot 219: SHAHZIA SIKANDER

Pathology of Suspension #7

77 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (196.9 x 130.8 cm.)

Ink and gouache on paper.

2005

Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

Born in Lahore, Shahzia Sikander studied south-Asian traditional miniature painting. Inspired by Indo-Persian schools of painting, she creates contemporary culture, mixing highly politicized East and West iconography into fantastical coexistence: “Sikander typically blurs definitions, rewriting language- whether visual, sensual, traditional, modern or philosophical- and, in reinterpreting it, enriches its semiotic possibilities. Cultural or political clichés gain new meaning when they appear in her hybrid forms… [The] chimeras recur throughout her work begging further inquiry, showing that words used to separate identities can bleed into each other- binary separations as board as predator versus prey, nature versus culture, conservative versus avant-garde… Sikander’s work too evades censorship and approaches the territory of the dream… The fluidity of the gesture employed, the lightness of touch and delicate energy contained within these paintings, appears to reach toward automatic writing… Her use of repetition lends a meditative quality, while the combination and recombination of her motifs constantly energizes possibilities in her narratives without a story”

(Sean Kissane, <em>Shahzia Sikander</em>, Irish Museum of Art, Milan 2007, pp. 27-28).