TEMPTER PIECES
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Madiha Siraj is a mixed-media artist whose work explores the organization of patterns, repetition, and color through identity and belief. She primarily creates process-driven sculptural reliefs influenced by Islamic geometric patterns and the theoretical foundations on which these patterns were built.
Siraj’s process begins by molding individual pieces of polymer clay, a traditional craft material, in order to build densely patterned abstractions that extend toward the viewer in different forms. In her Flowers and Gradients series, monochromes and gradients explore color theory and dynamic texture, though the shape of the surface is imbued with significance. Circles contain the infinite and endless unity of the universe, whereas squares represent the material world in which everything has a beginning and end.
In her Shattered Tessellations and 99 Names For The One series, Siraj contemplates identity through cultural motifs as a first-generation Pakistani-American. Though Islamic geometric patterns seen through art and architecture inspire her interest in repetition, Siraj pays homage to traditions of Islamic artists intentionally incorporating minor “mistakes” in their patterns, celebrating a level of perfection that belongs only to God.
BIO:
Madiha Siraj lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2010, she received a dual Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego in Fine Art and Art History, Theory and Criticism. In 2011, she became a Master of Fine Arts candidate at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her work has been exhibited locally and nationally in venues including TygerTyger Gallery in Asheville, NC; Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, CO; East of West Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; FortworksArt in Fort Worth, TX; and Center for Contemporary Arts in Fort Worth, TX. Internationally, Siraj has been featured in an exhibition at Ahlan Art Gallery in London and several group shows curated by the UK-based collective VariantSpace.
