Bio
Visual practitioner and contemporary miniaturist Wardha Shabbir born in 1987 is residing in the city of Lahore Pakistan. She graduated from the prestigious National College of Arts, (NCA), Lahore, with her Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts (BFA Hons.), receiving Honours, in 2011, where she also merited the Principal’s Honour Award. During her academic career at NCA, Shabbir was awarded numerous scholarships and grants as well as being selected for an exchange programme in Paris, with the Ecole des Beaux Arts, (2006-‘10). Additionally, she received the best young artist Award from Al Hamra Gallery, Lahore, in 2011. She is also an educationist, having taught at her alma mater since 2013 where she also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor till 2021.

Since graduating, Shabbir has exhibited widely on national and international platforms. She was the first artist from Pakistan selected for FLACC Belgium, where she initiated a research-based experiment on the human sensorium while transforming a two-dimensional miniature painting into a three dimensional interactive environment. In 2016, she participated in the Summer Intensive Programme at the Slade School Of Fine Arts, London. In addition, Shabbir has exhibited at DAS (Dhaka Art Summit)-2014, Scope (Basel), Contemporary Istanbul-2011, Abu Dhabi Art Fair, 2020 and 2023, Indian Art Fair (2012 & 2019, 2022), Artissima 2021- Italy, Art Dubai 2022– Solo Booth (Bawwaba Section), ARCO- Madrid 2024 as well as numerous groups exhibit around the world. She has been invited as a Panelist at various platforms including the FLF (Faisalabad Literature Festival) 2022, LLF (Lahore Literary Festival),2023 and Art Basel Hong Kong - A Conversation On Ink and Miniaturism, 2023.

Her solo exhibitions include “ The Water is Never Still” at Sabrina Amrani, Madrid Spain 2024,“If A Tree Could Wander” Alhamra Arts Centre, Public Institution in Lahore, Pakistan, “The Water You Seek” 2022 at Grosvenor Gallery London, “Green Matter” at Canvas Gallery, Karachi 2021; ‘In a Free State’ at Grosvenor Gallery, London, 2019; “The Space Within” at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, 2018; “Of Trees and Other Beings” at Rohtas II, Lahore, 2016; and “Many Metamorphoses “at Rohtas II, Lahore, 2012.

Shabbir was among the finalists for the esteemed Jameel Prize 5 (2018), Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London where her work was exhibited, and travelled to other venues, including the Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai in 2019. She has been nominated twice for the Sovereign Art Prize, (2019 and 2020). Shabbir has also given workshop and lectures on Miniature Painting at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) 2018, London UK, Master Class on Miniature Painting at Art Abu Dhabi 2021, Workshop on the Introduction of Miniature Painting at MISK Institute , Riyadh, Saudi Arab, 2023. Shabbir’s work is in well-reputed private and corporate collections in Switzerland, Berlin, Dubai, Abu Dhabi ,India. As well as various prominent collections in Pakistan, India, UK, USA and Canada. Her work has been acquired by the British Museum, UK and Kiran Nadar Museum, India in 2023.

Artist Statement | I, too, am a part of this history
Stemming from my interest in the myriad contradictions that inform human behavior, the symbol of the path has come to inform some of my recent work. The discourse surrounding predestination or fatalism as having more, or the only, influence over our lives as opposed to personal choice being the catalyst for our fates is still an active one in the theology of my predominantly Muslim culture. But while religious texts, or the widespread interpretations of these texts, incline towards a fatalistic view regarding human life, there exists at the same time the concept of choice – choosing right over wrong, eternal bliss over worldly and temporary comfort, self-sacrifice over self-centeredness. The path or “Siraat”, then, becomes a means of navigating oneself through the clutter of these possibilities. It becomes a course of clarity in the midst of contradictory values and states of being.

Wardha Shabbir
Gyarah, 2018
Gouache on acid free paper
11.7 x 8.2 inches

Artist Statement | Knowledge of the Ancients

My practice entails a ‘sublimation’ of my struggle to survive, a perception of our reality, and the  essence of human connections; translating these into a continuum of evocative and flamboyant visual  and experiential exhibits derived from nature. In completing this intellectual exercise, I draw  inspiration from various components of growth in my environment to narrate the unavoidability of human tragedy, overcoming of failures with strength, and the consequent development of the human  mind. The source of my creative stimulus lies in the evolution of a tree; by visually adopting it as an  emblem of endurance and allowing it to teach me hope.

My deep-rooted desire for survival as a contemporary female artist in the throes of Pakistani society compels me to explore the infinite depths of my mind, which acts as a ‘conduit’ to the path that  guides my visual journey. Enriched with foliage, the path is formed through a multitude of relations  with points and lines. It engages and disengages with the surface, and moves through surrounding  spaces which are a continuity of my canvas. I create new spaces within the paintings themselves, in  the form of passages, enclosures, light, and sometimes even the absence of light. I indulge in using  elements of my everyday subjective experience; verdant greenery and vivid hues, to create  interactive imagery that persists in the viewer’s mind. Within this paradisiacal imagery, I have  carefully embedded symbols of loss and despair, but also hope and survival, to explain the  contradictory state of awareness during human struggle. Each visual unveils itself gradually to the  observer’s eye; it stimulates their senses at first like spring after a long winter, then demystifies and  after reaching them through their ‘visual vocabulary’, it begins to unravel and elucidate their reality.

The ‘organic’ geometry in my work portrays the inextricable tie between a nonlinearity of time and a  plethora of our ‘lived’ experiences; how each of us perceives the order of time. Akin to dreams where  precognition of the future occurring through symbols of our past precedes the experience of the  present time. The assortment of motifs and angles in my growing visuals depict the chasms between  individuals' parallel realities and emotions. There is infinitude in each person’s singular journey, in  following a path that has an end in itself. When our dimensions intersect through spontaneous  interactions or relationships, we allow ourselves to become part of each other’s realities. In accepting  this theory of life, we form true attachments with each other, which is why we share ideas, dilemmas, and solutions that transcend the traditional bounds of space and time. Through the illustration of  ‘human connections’ in my visuals, the relativity of our isolated existences and empathy toward  individual suffering becomes apparent.

Through a perpetual journey on this path that multiplies, wavers, breaks, and reconciles repeatedly, I  find a means of returning to the self. This idea of self, inherent in the undefined passages of my mind,  is represented through the emergence of black holes or black fire in my work. An ‘aesthetic  departure’ from the dream-like perfection of my paintings, the paradoxical presence of these symbols is designed to pull the observer deep into the infinite layers of their enriched darkness. As an ode to  my perseverance through life as a woman, these allow merely a glimpse into my artistic ‘process’;  how I diligently continue to ‘sublimate’ all defeat, pain, and stress into visual vitality.

Our life battles bring to the surface, the strongest and the most vulnerable parts of us. The more I  paint, the stronger I feel.

What better way is there than to permit ourselves to find gratitude in the splendor of nature evolving  around us, and to embrace an ‘inner bloom’ by letting ourselves persist like a tree?

Wardha Shabbir

 Savannah Of The City | 2024 | 8.5 (w) x 11 (h) inches | Gouache On Acid Free Paper | POR