Barefoot and clad in a plain black kurta (tunic), spectators only begin to notice my black shadow when I reach the centre of the gallery and unfold a large white canvas onto the floor. As I gently walked on and toward the centre of the canvas, I inhaled and exhaled a deep breath of anticipation. Anxiety always fills my mind and body before every performance, as it has become my personal endeavor to share a visual story that has roots in family, language, tradition, and cultural heritage from time immemorial. I quietly observe a gathering of unknown faces of spectators congregating in a gallery space—some of those in attendance sit elegantly, while others stand impatiently. Suddenly the atmosphere changes, and a sense of curiosity silences them all. With closed eyes and folded knees, and a swift motion of my finger hitting “play” on my iPod, music fills my headphones to block the remaining noise. Throughout all of my performances, I transport myself to my own solitude where my only companions are rhythms of the Sufi qawwali music, the words of its spiritual poetry, and the sound of my breathing—all of which synchronize with the murmur of my heart and the swift action of my calligraphic pen. Initiating a nuqta (a dot), I begin drawing the phrase We Do Not Know Who We Are Where We Go in my native Urdu language, a phrase that speaks to a broad philosophical question about human identity and existence, may it be religious, spiritual, or political. The drawing has no obvious ending, only an unspecified temporal point of beginning. It could only end when there is no space left to draw on the canvas, and a new drawing must start over where I would present a new tale, a new beginning.
Image description: Video still shows a person standing with an arm extended. They are drawing Urdu text upon a clear surface that is in front of them. The text is drawn repeatedly in an accumulating circle, somewhat obscuring the person who is drawing.
Above: Tazeen Qayyum, We Do Not Know Who We Are Where We Go (documentation), 2016. Drawing Performance at Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, Christof Migone’s Mixer project. Photo by Sumaira Sheikh. Image courtesy of the artist.
Image description: An overhead view of Tazeen Qayyum. She is seated in the centre of an elevated platform with a white canvas covering its surface. She is drawing repeated line formations to form a circle around herself, enacting a meditative, durational performance. The result of the mark-making is an abstract drawing that shows the artist’s attentive care, patience and commitment.
Growing up in Pakistan, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, the rise of Islamisation and negotiating the legacies of British colonialism were frequent topics among Pakistani media. Yet, as a woman, I also experienced a society that could not adequately challenge the socio-political military rule and the culture of patriarchal power. I became more aware of such diverse issues at home, as my parents embodied both secular and spiritual learning. From religious and spiritual inclination to the impact of migration, home became the place where it sowed many seeds of my creative ideas and goals. While my parents were not religious in the traditional sense, they nevertheless inculcated strong values in my brother and me. My father, an army officer, often shared his early childhood memories and nostalgia about his migration from Hyderabad, India (his true family home). He has always strongly advocated for women’s rights and took a stand for me when I decided to move to a different city to pursue higher studies—much of which paved a way for me to become independent. But it was my mother’s vivacious personality, her zest for life, and courage to speak her mind in the face of hardship and struggle that continue to define my feminist spirit. As she nurtured my artistic talents, I began to appreciate creating things by hand while she taught me many crafting skills, such as sewing, doll making, attention to detail and, last but not least, practicing patience. While starting my artistic practice/journey as a miniature painter, my parent’s lessons proved to be invaluable in my specialization in miniature painting of the South Asian and Persian tradition.
I discovered miniature painting during my studies at the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan. Sharing revered knowledge passed down across many generations, the faculty instilled the sense of keeping with the traditional methodology, studio setup and discipline, and even the use of tools. Miniature painting tradition consists of mental and physical preparation, complete concentration, specific posture, mastery of hand-eye coordination, and learning the craft of preparing handmade materials, such as labouriously grounding pigments, making a single qalam (hair brush) and handmade wasli (archival paper)—all of which become major components of the miniature painting tradition. Once one has learned such techniques, only then can one begin the painting experience. Seated on the floor—hours at a time— one meticulously builds each painting stroke by stroke, and layer by layer, often taking weeks to complete a piece. Some distinctive characteristics of the tradition are the use of symbolism, pile-up-perspective, stylization in composition, strong unbroken lines, naturalistic subjects, meticulous detailing, and the emphasis on the process and making.
As a young student, I was initially attracted to this medium to challenge and test my craft, as it requires you to possess a high degree of skill and patience to even start the learning process. I was later drawn to the history, its roots, and the many unique layers of this medium—all of which help me fill the gaps in my own narrative. The Neo-Miniature movement, which began in early 1990s in Lahore, boldly evolved the context and subject of painting to reflect contemporary life while keeping the tradition, methodology, and practice of miniature painting alive and pure. I was fortunate to participate in this movement and witness the rise of many of my contemporaries from Pakistan, such as Shahzia Skindar, Imran Qureshi, Hamra Abbas, Khadim Ali, and Nusra Latif Qureshi. At the forefront of this movement, these artists have gained wide international acclaim through their unique Neo-Miniature inspired contemporary artworks.
Image description: Video still shows a birds-eye view of several figures on a white floor. There are five lines that divide the image into six columns, each containing four figures. Each figure is the same person, captured in various moments as they draw a circle on the floor. The process of durational drawing documents Tauba, which in Urdu means to seek forgiveness.
In the early years of my artistic career, I found myself responding to individual and personal stories of people around me through the lens of feminism, societal patriarchy, and social justice, from which I utilized a delicate visual vocabulary stemming from miniature paintings. Even today, my rigourous training and diverse reading evolves and shapes my art practice expanding into areas of installation, drawings, video, and performance art. The meticulous detailing and delicacy of mark making—whether in politically charged paintings or spiritually contemplative drawings— creates an aesthetic beauty that contrasts with the serious issues I explore. The attention to detail, the ways in which I engage with space, complex patterns, organized methodologies, use of symbolism, and narrating multiple stories within a single plane are some of my prominent, identifiable influences. But most of all, it is the essential focus, where I feel my entire being is present on the tip of the brush or pen—making each work stroke by stroke—that has become my biggest takeaway from the tradition.
After developing a professional practice and feeling a sense of recognition in Pakistan’s art world, I later migrated to Canada with my husband, who is also a visual artist and a supportive and encouraging voice in my life. It was upon arrival at Toronto Pearson International Airport that I realized I was not only 11,000 kilometers away from my roots, but also closer to the epicentre of a global superpower shortly after 9/11 (the United States of America). Pearson Airport represents the first place where I gained my new identity. From that point onwards, I have navigated through reconciling and adjusting to my life in Canada, which initially meant finding a new home and job—while embracing motherhood—and experiencing a shift in my worldview. The immediate, significant challenge that I faced as a practicing artist was losing my hard-earned and growing recognition in Pakistan and South Asia. Compounded by the realization that I had to start over in every aspect of my life, I became overwhelmed. To reintroduce my art to a new audience not only requires time and patience in discovering unknown aspects of my hybrid identity, but also, in the process, I must educate others on the context of my artistic production (e.g. where it comes from, its aesthetics, history, vocabulary, and contemporary authenticity). Mindful of the risk of being pigeonholed as a tokenistic artist of “exotic art” in the Global North context, I felt lost and invisible here.
Emerging as an artist in Canada, various categorizations and terms in art, such as “woman artist” and “Islamic Art,” have baffled me. While one could recognize the term “women’s art” within a feminist lens, women’s representation seems to be apparent in the Pakistani art world, as many of the curators, writers, gallerists, and art university heads are predominately women. I especially struggle with understanding the term “Islamic Art” as something monolithic within the Western canon of art history. I recognize that art that originates from the Muslim world—or created by Muslim artists with particular techniques, patterns, or symbolism—neither solely represents the Islamic faith nor is inclusive of the larger Islamic world. As a practicing artist, a practicing Muslim, and someone who has lived in diverse cultures, I struggle fitting my work within the contrived criteria of “Islamic Art.” Transcending cultural norms, my works gaze inward and create bridges between people, worlds, traditions, and faiths, as they reveal shared vulnerabilities in seeking spiritual connections that transcend Western-imposed notions of time and space.
Recalling my earliest memories in my new life in Canada, many often asked, “how does it feel to be a woman in a ‘free’ Western country such as Canada, as opposed to your old life in Pakistan?” Such a conversation would always lead me to ask myself: “Are women in the West truly ‘free,’ or is that a myth?” This inquiry led to a large installation-based project entitled Our Bodies Our Gardens (2011). I initially began the project with the gathering of personal stories of women, as well as their hot-water bottles, which they once held close to their bodies to provide comfort. Embedded with diverse functional, poetic, and metaphorical meanings—e.g. pain, healing, and miscellaneous memories—I hand-painted each of these bottles inspired by their stories and later suspended them like a hanging garden. Created as a collection of personal narratives from women around the globe, I sought to examine the everyday struggle of women and their commonality beyond borders. Scale and location may differ, yet our struggle seems familiar, arising from society’s treatment of relationships, sexuality, love, fidelity, politics, health, comfort, and stability.
Image description: A room with walls and floor covered in a patterned wallpaper of red cockroaches connected in a mandala-like grid. Three chairs are planted on the ground and connected like airport seating is. The chairs are also red with patterns hand-painted onto their cushions. The presence of these hand-made, laborious gestures on the chairs and the walls give a sense of movement and articulates the impermanence of transitory spaces.
I later returned to Pearson Airport in 2013 as an invited Canadian artist to respond to the site. My site-specific installation, entitled A Holding Pattern (2013), expressed the trials and tribulations associated with travelling and crossing borders as a Muslim since my first arrival in Toronto a decade earlier. For this installation, I further explored a cockroach motif that I had been painting in my practice as a metaphor for resilience and death. Elegantly and exquisitely grotesque, my renderings became a critique of how Western society employs fear tactics and “othering” to continually dismiss the experiences of people of colour and their respective cultures. The cockroach motif serves as a social commentary that narrates everyday human stories of resilience and triumph over adversities. While the motif and its narrative have evolved in my work, the manifestation of fear has remained central in both perceived and real threats. For A Holding Pattern, I placed individually cut and painted acrylic cockroaches on the wall and floor, creating a large patterned screen resembling a “Jaali” (grille) that is often seen in Islamic architecture that separates spaces while allowing light to travel. Understanding my work through mystical and philosophical symbolism, this infinite pattern extends beyond the material world. I also intricately painted a set of airport lounge chairs representative of the liminal space of an airport, where migrants and refugees are neither here nor there but instead wait for clearance upon arrival at Pearson Airport. The title “holding pattern” solidifies this thinking as it connotes an aircraft awaiting clearance to land. It is a state of waiting that references my own displaced identity of living between two cultures, always in transit and never truly at home.
Extending my performance practice and creating my first solitary calligraphic drawing in my studio in 2018—away from the public gaze—I immediately realized that my journey has segued into a very different focus and endurance in my practice. Heading toward emotional states of mind where I am most vulnerable, I have started to question a lot of actions and relations around me, including my purpose in life; self-reflexivity has become an important component of my practice. To begin this intimate dialogue, I connected with the Arabic word Tauba (repentance or to seek forgiveness). It became the very first single word that I drew in my new line of artistic inquiry. My experience of writing this word countless times was meditative and felt as though I provided absolute submission. It took me a month to create this work, as I relived moments of love, joy, prayer, grief, and melancholia while drawing.
Image description: A line drawing on white paper consisting of fine lines that encircle each other in layers. The layering of the lines in varying densities produces an optical illusion effect. The illusion destabilizes the eye in a dizzying way, showing depth that is not physically there. This is a drawing of perfect circles embracing one another in support amidst movement and flux.
Such elements of my meditation practice, which are often attributed to Sufi practices, developed organically and repetitively. As I continued with the series, I selected meaningful words in the Urdu language that have resonated with me in a personal and poetic context of time and place. The words often appear as sets of opposites—I repeatedly draw those words for hours at a time. While maintaining their legibility, the resulting drawn image is a detailed concentric mandala-like abstract form. I created Brabri/Bartari (2020) in the wake of the social justice movements and the protests in June 2020. Drawing in counter-directions, my selected words Brabri and Bartari—translating to “equality and privilege”— explore the socio-political realities of my own displaced identity, anxieties, and assimilation, that often result in solitary thoughts, marks, and movements. Such circular movements for me open a gateway to new ideas that draw from my various readings on the concept of time in the Quran and in Islamic literature and science journals. From the theory of relativity to Muslim philosophers’ study of time and space as a quest for knowledge and truth, all of these notions of time have inspired scientists, philosophers, and artists alike.
The Quran is explicit on the difference between Divine Time and the human perception of time, as it states that, “a day of your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count” (The Holy Quran 22:47). In this regard, it refers to the idea of time travel that both moves forward and reverses motion, yet has no beginning or end. We all start somewhere in this timeline where we remain in a constant state of flux, learn, and grow, while remaining infinitely connected through our thoughts, words, and actions. Our innate desire to find meaning in this chaotic life requires slowing down and dedicating energies to learning and the practice of care, patience, and knowledge.
Tazeen Qayyum is a contemporary Pakistani-Canadian artist. Her work has received several critical reviews including in Canadian Art (2018), The New York Times (2009) and The Globe and Mail (2011, 2015). Her work has been exhibited around the world and is part of several public and private collections. www.tazeenqayyum.com
This article is published in issue 38.3 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue
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