Shahzia Sikander’s 2024 solo exhibition at Pace Prints, Liquid Light, is the culmination of a year of intensive collaboration between the artist and the print- and paper-makers at the Pace Prints studios. Beginning with an exploration of dimensional matrix construction in the intaglio studio with Sarah Carpenter, Sikander set the stage for the ambitious textural reliefs which she achieved in this body of work.
As the imagery and themes of the show coalesced, the focus of experimentation shifted to the Pace Paper studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where the artist and Rachel Gladfelter pushed the conceptual and material boundaries of the work to new limits by uniting image, color and substrate in complex constellations of handmade paper. In bringing her hand into paper at its raw, unformed state, Sikander was able to define the fiber, pigmentation and dimensional inclusions to be bonded through the ancient process of papermaking into works that are both integrally united and original.
The recording of Sikander's conversation with Carpenter and Gladfelter, recorded on June 6, 2024, at Pace Prints, offers a rare opportunity to hear a first-person account of the creative process from the artist and her collaborators, augmented by the perspective of an eminent specialist in the field of works on paper and authority on Sikander’s work.
Isabelle Dervaux was the Acquavella Curator and Department Head of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum from 2005 to 2023. In 2021, she curated the presentation at the Morgan of the exhibition Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities. She holds a Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a master's degree from the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
