Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander

Mirror Plane, 2012

Shahzia Sikander likes the idea of exhausting an image. Sikander creates stimulating visual experiences for her audience through the addition of modern and non-traditional elements by forcing the viewer to reconcile conflicting sensibilities hidden within beautifully rendered landscapes as well as offering a wide range of stimuli from the traditional Muslim world to popular Western culture, such as mandalas, airplanes and cowboy boots and soccer balls. 

For her subjects, she mixes personal and historical experiences such as reading the Qu'ran. She seeks to subvert Eastern stereotypes through her work.

She is very skilled in Indo-Persian miniature painting technique and formal practice.  She frequently uses repetitive shapes to represent movement. In the one above, she uses the same shape repetition for the hair and the flight of birds, which is really cool. She does a lot of performance-based installations to further get her concept across.

Art 21 video

Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu

Dispersion, 2002, ink and acrylic on canvas

Julie Mehretu's work combines aspects of cartography, architectural drawing, urban planning, and abstract painting. She creates energetic compositions with interesting lines and colored planes. Her art has been called animated urbanscapes.

She layers materials like Mylar, vellum, and semi-transparent paper. In addition to painting directly, she sprays acrylic medium with an airbrush.

Rather than classical renderings of environments, she presents them in unexpected ways, sometimes symbolizing not real space.

Her work has been discussed in terms of globalism: each individual layer can represent views and perspectives.