Pakistani by birth, American by residence, Shahzia Sikander is a member of a global community of artists whose work derives its meaning from the many layers of life and work. Fusing traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting with Minimalist abstraction, her work establishes an aesthetic bridge between the West and the East. The traditional miniature – for some, the only familiar form of South Asian painting – is a stylised chronicle of contemporaneous events.

Adrienne Rich (American poet, essayist and feminist) famously engaged with the works of eminent Pakistani poets and activists, translating the works of South Asia’s pre-eminent Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The poet was no stranger to prison and exile and known globally for his recreations of the Persian poetic form, ghazal. Through this he gave Pakistan’s national language a new form of expression that made politics and romance sing together. Today’s activists carry on this tradition that originally accompanied Pakistan’s independence in 1947. Sikander’s portraits do so visually, melding Persian miniature techniques with symbols and allusions to contemporary American politics to examine the experiences of those between two cultures.