Shahzia Sikander Quotations

I was very, very quiet. I was always a loner, hardly spoke, and I was quite a nerd in school. So I was an outsider always.

My whole purpose of taking on miniature painting was to break the tradition, to experiment with it, to find new ways of making meaning, to question the relevance of it.

When I first arrived in Houston, I was fascinated with the elaborate styles of cowboy boots and thought they were incredibly exotic. They also seemed to be a central part of a specifically 'Texan' identity, one distinct from being 'American.'

For me, I always feel that I'm not sure what's going to happen next year or what's going to happen the year after or what's in the future. So I really kind of just focus on the project at hand and try to do the best that I can. And that, for me, is as much as I can control.

Not to be boxed in, to be able to transcend boundaries: for an artist, it's essential.

I like driving. A lot. I think that's something I just enjoy the most. I can, at a moment's notice, drive across the country if, you know, I had to.

I don't really listen to music when I work. I really have to focus on one thing at a time. I like a lot of quiet and peace when I'm working or when I'm thinking or when I'm reading.

I think context, location matters a lot. Because location obviously in my situation, it's the space in which the work is going to be exhibited. And since some of the work I do is created onsite, it requires a different type of space, versus the smaller drawings or more subject-oriented work. So that the context becomes important.

In the end, the gesture of painting becomes almost meditative, like a ritual.

Initially I explored the tension between illustration and fine art when I first encountered miniature painting in my late teens. Championing the formal aspects of the Indo-Persian miniature-painting genre has often been at the core of my practice.

I'm interested in taking a form, breaking it apart, and then rebuilding it. It is about transformation for me...it is a very core notion that stabilizes my practice.

Art, for me, has always been a ticket for experience.

For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination, and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive.

Talking with other artists is an incredible process. You engage with the work very differently...a nd different relationships between different works start to emerge. To tap into that energy-to tap into that moment-is great for me as an exercise.