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The Illustrated Page Series #1

2005-2006
Shahzia Sikander (Pakistani (active United States), born 1969) In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (founded 1977) Printed by Jean-Paul Russell and Ann Marshall at Durham Press, Durham, Pennsylvania
Sikander intricately inserts modern imagery into works that employ the style, technique, and imagery of ancient Pakistani and Indian miniature paintings. This unique mixed-media piece is the first in a series of three monumental diptychs designed to suggest two pages of an open book. Working on an elaborately patterned silkscreen base, which she printed with Durham Press, Sikander added opaque watercolor and gold-leaf details by hand and oversaw the execution of some of them by artist assistants at the Fabric Workshop and Museum-thereby imitating a traditional collaborative artistic practice used in Indian and Pakistani workshops.

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