Inspired by the art of Shahzia Sikander and The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
Activity Guide by Kate Kwasneski '21
Intern, Grinnell College Museum of Art
Learn
Shahzia Sikander is a Pakistani-American artist. She grew up in Lahore, Pakistan, and moved to Rhode Island after completing college. She makes many kinds of art, from paintings to animation to performance art. The Grinnell College Museum of Art has some of her prints in its collection, and those are the pieces we are going to look at today.
Sikander was largely inspired by an art form called Indo-Persian miniature painting. This kind of painting has been practiced in Iran, Pakistan, and the areas around them for hundreds of years. These paintings, as their name suggests, were small and intricate. These paintings usually contained figures and elaborate borders. Indo-Persian miniature paintings are full of intricate patterns and borders.
Look & Think
Grinnell College owns four prints from Sikander’s Embark/Disembark series. This series is made of silhouettes of humans and forest creatures with solid colors and beautiful patterns. The silhouettes are flat, but still have depth in the same was as Indo-Persian miniatures.
These images take place on a very simple backgrounds, which make the colors and patterns in the figures stand out even more. What animals and shapes do you see in these images? Which do you like best? What emotions do these prints make you feel? What story would you tell about the artworks?
Create
Shahzia Sikander’s Embark/Disembark series is made up of the silhouettes of woodland animals with colors and patterns on them. I would like you to make some art inspired by this – make an outline of an animal or creature and fill it with color!
Think about the colors you use. Do you want them to be similar to or different from each other? What shapes and patterns will you use on your silhouettes?
For my examples, I chose an owl and a fox. I decided to fill the owl with cool colors, like blue and green, and the fox with oranges and reds to represent its fur color. I made large, swirling patterns like Sikander.
Read & Write
Sikander’s art of woodland creatures reminds me of the book The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. This book takes the names of plants and animals and turns them into acrostic poems. An acrostic poem is one where every line starts with a letter of the poem’s name. Here is an example:
OWL
Owls fly through the sky at night
While most other creatures sleep
Lightly floating through their dreams
Try writing an acrostic poem about your woodland creature!