The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

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
color digital printing, watercolor, and gouache on wasli paper
Sheet: 40.6 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 in.)
Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 2021.103
Location: Not on view

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.
  • 2020-2021
    (Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2021-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Peters, Emily J. "New Narratives: Contemporary works on paper emphasize storytelling.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 4 (2023): 4-7. Reproduced: P. 7; Mentioned: P. 4, 6 archive.org
    Liebert, Emily. "From Venice to Cleveland. Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior at the Biennale.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 64, no. 1 (2024): 26-27. Reproduced: P. 27; Mentioned: P. 26-27 archive.org
  • Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 14-June 8, 2025).
    New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2023-April 14, 2024).
    Shazia Sikander: Weeping Willows, Liquid Tongues. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY (November 5 – December 19, 2020).
  • {{cite web|title=Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11|url=false|author=Shahzia Sikander|year=2020|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2021.103