Sly Offering

Shazia Sikandar: As in so much of my work here too, you can see the female protagonist rejecting the colonial, the male gaze. It is my intention to reimagine archetypal characters to tell richer stories. There's almost a back and forth a dialogue between historical paintings and languages, almost like an attempt to tell a story which operates very much like a poem, precise, as well as open-ended. I have a deep affinity with poetry as a catalyst, its ability to liven up language and to pack so much expression in a condensed form. When I look at this painting, I can read a bit of Adrienne Rich, I can read a bit of Solmaz Sharif in this work. And that's what I aim in my practice, is how to keep the work alive by adding many layers of meaning so that it can speak to multiple points of views. There's definitely a little bit of anarchy, a lack of sovereignty, and these constructions of femininity and beauty are all there as ways to dismantle perhaps orthodox representations. In this work, I think I was exploring what is a state of homelessness, not as in exiled or diasporic artist, but more as a collective female agency that could possibly rupture through abodes of patriarchy as well as militarism across national boundaries, cultures, and histories.