Nausheen Saeed
Born in 1968 in Lahore (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Lahore (Pakistan)
Nausheen Saeed obtained her BFA in Sculpture at the National College of Arts, Lahore before acquiring her MFA in Site Specific Sculpture from Wimbledon School of Art, London. She currently works as an Associate Professor at the National College of Arts, Lahore teaching sculpture in the Department of Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, as well as having been shown in five solo exhibitions at galleries in Pakistan, such as: Rohats 2, Lahore; and Canvas Gallery, Karachi. Her work is part of a number of private and public collections, including: World Bank, Washington; Levi’s Pakistan, Lahore; National College of Arts, Lahore; Toyota Tsusho, Tokyo. Saeed’s feminist art practice sculpturally takes the body as the site of contention, conflict and controversy. Her work celebrates the female body, extricating her figures from the residue of the male gaze so that they exist as independent entities, proclaiming their individuality as their strength.
In her sculptural installation for the Karachi Biennale 2017, Saeed simultaneously explores the prevalence of violence in our society by using technology as an analogous visual metaphor. The dialogue created by her pair of sculptures, two identical female figures placed in separate cubicles of mirrors, one taking a ‘selfie’, the other holding a handgun to her head, represents a cutting critique of the contemporary commonplace, assimilating the pervasiveness of smartphones to that of guns, the ubiquity of ‘selfies’ to that of violence. The complexity of the statement made by Saeed’s work goes beyond the ostensible simplicity of its visual analogy; it excoriates both component parts – the gun and the smartphone, the process of taking a ‘selfie’ and shooting a gun. The latent insinuation of the work suggests that by our narcissistic obsession with online self-presentation, we are collectively partaking in a form of violence against our individual selves.
