Returning to a technique she first developed at RISD, Sikander created many multipart works, such as this one, on paper coated with a combination of clay, gesso, acrylic, and patching compound. More stable than tracing paper, this surface allowed her to precisely delineate the forms. Varying the amount of red clay provided a color range that Sikander likened to flesh tones. This textured, absorbent surface coaxed new characters and narratives from Sikander’s imagination. Tumbling, floating, and flying, the interacting figures are engaged in exuberant movement.
Shahzia Sikander (born 1969)
The Pink Pavilion, 2002
Ink, opaque watercolor, and watercolor, on clay-coated paper
Collection of Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, New York
© Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy: the artist, Sean Kelly, New York and Pilar Corrias, London.
Shazia Sikandar: In my practice, drawing has a very central role. Drawing implies movement across time, across formats, across mediums. Drawing is a means of imagining and bringing ideas to life. So this series is a constellation of ideas. I see it as big ideas in small spaces, like a glimpse through the pages of a sketchbook. Many of the images seem to be in a joust, almost like a battle over each other. There's movement, both literal and symbolic, as in the crossovers between man and nature, human and animal, plant and animal, geometry and bodies, male and female. I don't see any particular beginning or an end in this work. You can start with any section, move left or right, up or down. Movement can be both literal as in the physical crossing of geographical borders, whether it's bodies, commodities, resources. But movement can also be symbolic, and that is the sense of belonging as where do you belong or what are you being excluded from? So that's a little bit of what this work is, that representations are not static.