Info
Over the period of a year, Sarah Hopkins from Swansea, Wales and Atif Khan from Lahore, Pakistan, worked together from their respective countries to produce a collection of 16 limited edition diptych prints.
Funded by Wales Arts International and the Arts Council of Wales the artists worked independently on their artworks in their home countries and exchanged them via courier for the other to complete. There was no particular theme set for the project, the artists were able to refence imagery that reflected their personal interests.
The resultant artworks combine Sarah’s interest in Welsh history and heritage and Atif’s visual refences to Pakistani popular culture and Islamic miniature paintings, create idiosyncratic and intriguing interplays between cultural indictors, resonating visual experiences and generate nuanced commentaries on colonialism.
Sarah said: “Working on top of each other’s images was a daunting prospect, but we both found such joy in the process and some of the results were quite unexpected. Each completed print tells its own story and is a unique combination of visual vocabulary with references drawn from our own cultures and heritage.
To date DIPTYCH has been exhibited at the National College of Arts, Lahore at O Art Space Gallery, Mission Gallery Swansea and at Stiwdio Griffith, Swansea College of Art, Univeristy of Wales Trinity St David
Plans for the development of the project include an ambitions practice based international collaboration between printmaking students in Pakistan and Wales.
Notes on the Artists
Atif Khan is a well-known and popular printmaker based in Pakistan. Khan studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore and went on to receive printmaking residencies in London and Glasgow. Khan is currently an associate professor at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. His works are held in the collections of the Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi, the Bradford Museum in the United Kingdom, and the Darat al Funun in Amman, Jordan, among others.
Sarah Hopkins is an established Welsh printmaker who has exhibited widely as a solo artist both in the UK and internationally. In recent years their work has been purchased by the Palace of Westminster for the UK Parliamentary Art Collection and is displayed at Portcullis House. Their work is also held at the National Library of Wales, Contemporary Arts Society of Wales, UK Cabinet Office, Westminster and in many private collections.
Further Information
https://www.instagram.com/atifkhan.artist/