Seattle Art Museum: Exhibition Information

In conjunction with Intimate Worlds: Masterpieces of Indian Painting from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection, the Seattle Art Museum is pleased to present Conversations with Traditions: Nilima Sheikh and Shahzia Sikander. This exhibition features the work of two contemporary artists who use traditional South Asian court painting as a source in their work.

Nilima Sheikh was born in 1945 in New Delhi, India, and currently divides her time between Vadodara (Baroda) and New Delhi. Initially trained in the Western style of oil painting at the University of Baroda, Sheikh turned her attention to a close study of the miniature painting tradition after she became a mother, which prompted her to look for a way to paint in a more intimate scale. Sheikh’s work focuses on narratives written about the trauma of the 1947 Partition, as well as tragedies of domestic violence and self-destruction. Painting techniques of gentle washes, delicate lines, and soft color tones are characteristic of her art.

Shahzia Sikander was born in 1969 in Lahore, Pakistan, where she later studied Mughal painting at the National College of Art in Lahore, the only school in the world to offer a degree in this subject. She has lived in the United States since 1993, when she enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since then, she has had a number of solo exhibitions in this country, at such venues as the Renaissance Society in Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and ArtPace in San Antonio, Texas. She was also one of the contemporary artists featured in the PBS series ART:21. Sikander incorporates Western, Islamic, and Hindu iconography into her works, using techniques and formats based in traditional painting to create her own idiom and convey personal narratives.

As a special component of this exhibition, Shahzia Sikander has created a site-specific wall painting at SAM on the Second Floor, across from the elevators and just outside the Painted Visions gallery.

Conversations with Traditions: Nilima Sheikh and Shahzia Sikander is organized by the Asia Society, New York. Special funding for the artists’ installation and programming in Seattle generously provided by The Allen Foundation for the Arts and the W. L. S. Spencer Foundation.

Champa, before her marriage, and with her mother (from the series When Champa Grew Up), 1984
Tempera on handmade paper
Image: approx. 12 x 16 in.
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester City Museums Service

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