Waseem Ahmed
Waseem Ahmed is a Pakistani artist born in Hyderabad, Pakistan, in 1976 and currently lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan. Ahmed hails from the generation of artists who initiated the movement of the ‘contemporary miniature’ in Lahore about fifteen years ago.
In Pakistan, the traditional miniature has been a starting point for many contemporary artists who have honored the technique as cultural heritage, while reinterpreting and reinventing it in their own way. Ahmed has distinguished his work by producing creatively incisive images with innovative stylistic and iconographic contributions within a practice that is rigorously traditional, combining drawing, gouache, pigments, and gold or silver leaf on Wasli paper. At the heart of his imagery lies the human figure and the boundaries that divide humanity in relation to his own historical, social context, and in close connection with the conflict and displacement that tinge our current time. His rich vocabulary of images often refers to mythology or history, both Eastern and Western. His work bridges our cultural heritage and the turbulence of our time.
