Skip to Main Content

Artwork Page for Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11

Details / Information for Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11

Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11

2020
(Pakistani American, b. 1969)
America
color digital printing, watercolor and gouache on prepared wove paper
Sheet: 40.6 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 in.)
Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 2021.103
Location: 010 Focus Gallery
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Download, Print and Share

Print

Did You Know?

Shazia Sikander has described the theme of the series to which this drawing belongs as “a state of struggle, of being caught variously between monetizing worlds, vocabularies, competing cultures, and histories.”

Description

“My work embraces uncertainty and flux,” explains Shahzia Sikander. In Empire Follows Art, as Sikander attempts to harness the unpredictable properties of watercolor and gouache paint, she develops new ideas, forms, and characters, some of which have become enduring motifs in her work. A figure in profile, emerging from a lush pool of paint, refers to Buraq, the mythic creature (part human, part animal) from Islamic tradition, who transports the Prophet Muhammed during his Mi’raj journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in a single evening. The multiple heads at the top of the page conjure Vishvarupa, an embodiment of Vishnu, a Hindu deity. Such incongruous juxtapositions, pervasive throughout Sikander’s work, evoke deep-seated histories in which fraught cultural and belief systems are combined.
Painting in watercolor and gouache, a more opaque paint, with swirling and streaking blotches of red, light blue, black, and white revealing digital printed figures. Center right, against a swathe of plain white paper, the Buraq's human head faces our left with medium-light skin tone, wearing a crown, greyscale cut-outs of various animals scattered beneath them. Upper left, two rows of blotchy, blue faces with pink features and black hair emerge from red paint swirls.

Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11

2020

Shahzia Sikander

(Pakistani American, b. 1969)
America

See Also

Visually Similar by AI

    Contact us

    The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

    To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

    All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.