Shazia Ahmad’s work speaks to the centrality of reminiscence and the passage of time as an accumulation of history. She chronicles journeys through time and place, paying tribute to intimate relationships that develop over the course of these passages. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, to a Pakistani father and Chilean mother, she straddles two different cultures and religions whilst living in a third culture. Her work is an exploration of where she belongs. Moreover, she pays tribute to her Pakistani heritage by merging elements of the country’s material culture with personal imagery in her visual vocabulary. Her practice comprises painting, printmaking and domestic microcosms encapsulated in handmade dioramas.
Having a hybrid identity finds its manifestation in Ahmad’s work through the creation of worlds, her vibrant color palette, patterns, and themes. Her nuanced relationship to this identity is nostalgic, holding on to a past as memories of it recede. These remembrances are expressed in reconstructed repetitive elements, domestic objects and flora interpreted in different lights on different days. Her current work evolved from watercolor monotypes in 2021 to an ongoing series of paintings and screen prints. These works combine a palette of cobalt, ultramarine blue, dioxazine violet, magenta, fuchsia and ecru.
Shazia Ahmad (she/her) is a half-Pakistani, half-Chilean painter and printmaker living in Brossard. Her practice is centered on the notions of home and belonging, tied to the broader theme of otherness due to her interfaith and unique mixed-race background. She is the recipient of several Canada Council for the Arts grants and has exhibited her work at The Rooms, Grenfell Art Gallery, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Unit1 Gallery London, amongst others. She was the 2021-22 Don Wright Scholar at St. Michael’s Printshop in St. John’s, NL.
