Bio
Natasha Malik received her BFA from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore in 2012, and her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 2015. Malik’s practice encompasses painting, drawing, installation, film, printmaking, and photography. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her solo shows include: a cage elusive as a shadow, Sanat Gallery, Karachi (2016), the soul breathes differently, Satrang Art Gallery, Islamabad (2018), the life of an image, Khaas Art Gallery (2022). She has shown her work at Coningsby Gallery (London), Asia House (London), and COMO Museum of Art (Lahore). She was a participating artist in the Lahore Biennale 2020 as a member of the Pak-Khawateen Painting Club. Under The Creative Process, an artistic platform she founded, Malik curated and co-curated exhibitions including: Of Other Spaces (2017), River in an ocean (2018), Unmaking History (2019) and The Unforgotten Moon: Liberating Art from Guantáánamo Bay (2023).
Artist Statement | Legacies of Crossings
The formative years of Malik’s artistic practice focused on specialising in miniature painting, particularly its history and traditional techniques. Her multi-media approach, which is rooted in this tradition, draws from its rich visual vocabulary, whilst addressing contemporary concerns around the female body, sexuality, loss, and memory. She deepens these investigations by challenging the foundation of Indo-Persian miniature painting, in the context of regional history, culture and colonialism.
A dominant thread in her work is the autobiographical, through which she explores female identity and sexuality developed within the constraints of patriarchy.Visceral reactions to tensions and trauma experienced under oppressive patriarchal structures are processed through her imagery, which grounds the female protagonist in landscapes of the psyche. The image becomes a space to confront the frictions between interiority and the predominant systems of patriarchy and capitalism. Within this broad spectrum, she addresses questions around the perception and expectations of the gendered body, by creating intimate psychological landscapes occupied by the solitary, introspective female figure, who is attempting to maintain her agency and sense of self. She examines the relationship between memory, materiality and making, to confront anxieties around the existential, particularly in relation to mortality, grief, alienation, and absurdity.