HIRA SIDDIQUI is Lahore based artist, she was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1992. In year 2015 Hira Completed BFA in painting from National College of Arts, Lahore. She’s an Art Instructor, independent curator and practicing artist.
Recently she conducted four successful sessions of ARTIST PRACTICE PROGRAM at SHAKIR ALI MUSEUM. Hira received Excellence Award for one of 5 best works of art at 31st National Exhibition of Art at Alhamra Art Gallery.
Siddiqui works predominantly in the medium of painting, She explores different techniques of watercolor, acrylic, graphite etc. and makes her work look like prints, collage and photo-transfer. She surrounds herself with serious art and her work is heavily influenced by Renaissance Masters. She has had different group exhibitions nationally and internationally and has participated in several Art Exhibitions, Competitions and Workshops. Moreover she has taken top rank positions in different art competitions. Hira worked as a cartoonist at The Frontier Post (Newspaper) in Lahore. She also has worked as teacher trainer at LGS School for a group project of UK based organization CCE, ALBBS, and care foundation. She has conducted several drawing and painting workshops at Shakir Ali Museum PNCA (Pakistan National Council of Arts) and has curated and co-curated art exhibitions there.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice is to extract the soul of worldwide famous paintings. I consciously and deliberately play with their color palate, compositional element, placement of objects specifically their narratives and recreate them in entirely different mediums and techniques. My work is a comment on museum quality art, which we access in different derived forms like prints of prints of prints and soft-copies, sometimes in a brilliant resolution and sometimes worst, what left is so ambiguous and mysterious. I challenge the authenticity of inspiration of how work transforms as it moves from canvas of the Master to the canvas of an artist, where the process of artistry results in so many diverse dimensions. Not everyone can access the original masterpiece to experience its originality. The fact is that none of us is experiencing the museum quality art. Almost all of us are inspired by second hand version of original paintings. I also challenge myself to break conditioned narrative of famous images by visually amalgamating famous narrative paintings. I enjoy the process of de-contextualizing images. In some paintings I am capturing the delicacy of different printed versions of painting. I normally use watercolors, oils, graphite and acrylics.

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