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Pakistan based visual artist Sadaf Naeem works in painting, sculpture, and installation. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the National College of Arts (Lahore, Pakistan), and is currently pursuing a Graduate degree from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (USA). She has presented solo exhibitions at O Art Space (Lahore Pakistan) in 2019, Chawkandi art Gallery (Karachi, Pakistan) in 2017, Koel art Gallery (Karachi, Pakistan) in 2015, Taseer art Gallery (Lahore, Pakistan) in 2013, and Ejaz Galleries (Lahore, Pakistan) in 2007. Sadaf was included in the Karachi Biennale in 2019, and produced an installation at Alliance Francaise. She has received “Award of merit in the memory of Ethel Portner” 2020, in the group show “Fiber Hawaii 2020” at Gallery lolani, Hawaii, USA. In 2017, she received a Nigaah Award in Landscape Painting. In 2019, she was included in the publication, “20 Pakistani Women Artists You Should Know,” edited by Tauqeer Muhajir. She has also participated in many group shows nationally and internationally.
Sadaf is an active art educator. She has taught at the professional colleges ‘Pakistan Institute of Fashion & Design’, and ‘Kinnaird College for Women’. She serves as a Board Member and Coordinator of Studio RM Residency, (Lahore, Pakistan). She has also conducted workshops for children in collaboration with Little Art (non profit organization).
I engage and use my body as the central reference in my creative process. I observe my body and its surrounding as it acts or reacts, stores or reflects, according to time and space. I use my body to observe the agency that women have in different cultures and societies. I was raised in the loud and vibrant culture Pakistan, Punjab, where women have a more integral role in social, domestic and economical settings than men. They work in the fields, do all household jobs, and take care of their children simultaneously. I am interested in the bodies of these women and how they interact with spaces of emotional and physical labor. I meld experience, concept and material in the form of narration.
I incorporate Paper making, waxing, tearing, cutting, pasting, stitching, molding and painting techniques in my work. I use materials and methods that are historically suggestive of craft and fine art traditions. I believe materials carry value and agency, and apply them in the process of fabrication.