Wardah Bukhari

Born in 1988 in Multan (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Lahore (Pakistan)

Wardah Naeem Bukhari earned her Bachelor’s of Graphic Design from the Multan College of Arts, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan (2010) and completed her Master’s in Visuals Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore (2012). She continues her studio practice while teaching as visiting lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan. Bukhari was Guest Curator of the first studio BQ Artist-in-Residence program (2015) in Murree. She was selected to participate in the International-Artist-In-Residence program at Arthub, Arizona, United States (2016). She was also invited for an artist talk at South Asian Women Collective, New York (2016). Bukhari works in various mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, digital art and performance art. Her works concentrate on the boundaries between inside and outside, content and form, feeling and shape, impression and expression. She has participated in several group exhibitions in Multan, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, as well as in the UK, Turkey, the UAE and the US. 

In her video on view at KB17, Bukhari captures a simple domestic act: A woman’s hands kneading bread. By focusing on the movement of a woman’s hands working dough, Bukhari seeks to explore the idea of suppression. On the surface, this video is about an everyday chore. But there are also undercurrents of a woman’s search for pleasure, providing a link between what she calls “female task and female fantasy.” As the artist states, “It is a celebration of a woman’s freedom of body and her freedom from male dominance.”