Shahzia Sikander

This publication covers the entirety of the multivalent art of Pakistan-born American artist Shahzia Sikander (b.1969), with a particular focus on her painting. It contextualises her art within her early education in Lahore, move to America in 1993, and then her establishment in the New York art world since 1997.

Sikander's work is among the most thought-provoking and ambitious in the contemporary art world. Initially transforming the traditional form of miniature painting, she pioneered what is now recognised as the Neo-Miniature movement, and over the past 20 years has sought to diversify a predominant Eurocentricity in contemporary art. Her paintings, video animations, mosaics and sculptures interweave historical and contemporary ideas about narrative, gender, trade, empire, and diaspora while centring on women's lives. This book considers the scope of Sikander’s considerable ambition and achievement.