In this composition, her NCA thesis, Sikander depicted herself within a house inspired by her teenage home and rendered in a style that references Safavid painting traditions. “I am a floating ghostlike presence in every chapter or segment,” she said, “privy to the unfolding narrative while functioning as a channel through which an observer can access and navigate the painting. My diaphanous moving and morphing form is rendered in white gouache, and one can never see my face. I was making a statement on the restlessness of youth and the quest for identity. The claiming of the freedom for the female body in the domestic setting.” Although the portrayal is informed by a range of traditions, everything about The Scroll—its subject, format, setting, and details—was newly imagined. Painted over a year and a half, this was a breakthrough work not just for Sikander but also for the viability of manuscript painting traditions for contemporary practice.
Shahzia Sikander (born 1969)
The Scroll, 1989–90
Watercolor and gouache on tea-stained wasli paper
Collection of the artist
© Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy: the artist, Sean Kelly, New York and Pilar Corrias, London.
Shazia Sikandar: This painting was a turning point in Pakistan, launching contemporary miniature and laying to rest the national debate about miniature tradition's inability to engage the youth. I was only 19 when I started this work, and the research is done in that era, in the '80s when there's the Afghan-Pak, US-Soviet War unfolding in the region. It's marked by a diminishing women's rights. I was inspired by women all around me, Pakistani women activists, artists, poets, all my female friends. So in this piece, you see this young woman stepping over a threshold symbolized as a frame. You see her taking herself and others along into a new territory, a new beginning. The painting reads left to right. At the end, you see the girl in white painting a self-portrait. It's sort of a triangular relationship with herself. Whose portrait is she looking at? Throughout the work, there's a lot of detail and the space expands and contracts. I'm looking at Chinese scroll paintings, the Safavid School. I'm looking at David Hockney, K.G Subramanyan, Satyajit Ray's use of narrative in his films. I was also looking at many Mughal sites in Pakistan, a lot of the actual architecture. So this painting takes all these references and asserts itself in the form of a epic poem. That's how I see it. And there's a playfulness in choosing the format of a scroll also, because it naturally lends itself to depicting a narrative about time or an unfolding of an event, a story, a day, or a lifetime.