Bio

Born in Karachi, Pakistan to a Pakistani father and a Chilean mother, my practice and research interests are centred on the notions of home and belonging, tied to the broader theme of otherness due to my interfaith and unique mixed-race background. After a long break, in which I pursued other professional interests, I returned to fine art in 2016. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts (Painting and Drawing major) from Concordia University in 2019 and was a finalist for the Prix Albert-Dumouchel in 2018. I was also awarded the Guido Molinari Prize in Studio Arts upon graduation and I received the Earl Pinchuk and Gary Blair Undergraduate Award in the course of my studies. I am the recipient of several Canada Council for the Arts grants and have exhibited my work in Canada, the United States, the UK, and Spain. I was the 2021-22 Don Wright Scholar at St. Michael’s Printshop in St. John’s, NL and I currently divide my time between Montreal and St. John’s. I have a previous double major undergraduate degree in Art History and History, and I completed my BTEC Foundation Diploma from Central Saint Martins in 1999.

Statement

My work speaks to the centrality of reminiscence and the passage of time as an accumulation of history. I chronicle journeys through time and place, paying tribute to intimate relationships that develop over the course of these passages. Thus, the concept of family transcends blood. Moreover, I pay tribute to my Pakistani heritage by merging elements of the country’s material culture with personal imagery in my visual vocabulary. My practice comprises painting, printmaking and domestic microcosms encapsulated in handmade dioramas.    

These works are part of a vibrant, limited palette body of work titled A Year, A Garden, A Feeling (Covid19 Diary). This work evolved from limited palette watercolour monotypes made at the start of 2021 into a series of paintings and screen prints that is on-going. A Year, A Garden, A Feeling (Covid19 Diary) combines a palette of cobalt and ultramarine blue, dioxazine violet, magenta, fuchsia and ecru and is about the theme of home. My work is defined by vibrant, saturated colours, and by limiting my palette I made blue one of the central components of the work.  

I was already creating domestic interior paintings and monotypes with repetitive elements during continued pandemic restrictions in Montreal and St. John’s, so the work is deeply personal and introspective. Instead of painting true-to-life, I wanted to see how the colours would interact with one another. Would introspection still be a key element? What would my chosen palette communicate about the subject matter?  

www.shaziaahmadcrohare.com

When did you realize you wanted to pursue art professionally?

I enrolled in an arts program for my A’Levels in Pakistan and knew then I wanted to pursue art professionally. I did a Foundation Year at art school right after finishing my A’Levels and then completely changed career paths soon after. It was only after my father’s death in 2013 that I returned to art and started painting again. With encouragement from my instructors, I decided to seriously pursue visual art and was accepted to the undergraduate Studio Art program at Concordia University in 2016. I have not looked back since.  

Whether fellow artist or friend, who has continued to inspire your work?

My first and most important inspiration is my family, both my immediate family and my kin. The concept of home is central to my work so my mother and sister continuously inspire me, even through simple encouragement. It is the same with my kin, which includes my friends from Concordia and friends I made in St. John’s during a two-year printmaking artist residency recently. All of these friends are also artists and the opportunity to see their work and to be in their presence has been a constant source of inspiration. They range from installation artists and printmakers to painters, fiber artists, and video artists.  

What do you enjoy exploring through your art?

Transforming the everyday into the epic is paramount for me. Though I take inspiration from my real life, I paint and draw in a manner that is not entirely true-to-life. Also, I have been working with a vibrant limited palette of cobalt and ultramarine blue, magenta, ecru, and dioxazine violet since 2021 and this adds a layer of introspection, while removing the work further from realism. What I also enjoy is being able to look at the same objects for a long time, suddenly looking at them differently one day perhaps because of the light or the time, and then translating them into art, be it through painting and drawing, printmaking, and small handmade dioramas.  

Looking back, what advice do you wish you could give your younger self?

I would tell my younger self to take some time off after high school and perhaps experience life a little bit before embarking on this journey. Timing is also everything and I believe I came back to art at precisely the right time. I would also tell my younger self not to be afraid to fail.

What is one thing you hope your audience walks away with after experiencing/viewing your work?

I hope my audience can relate to the concept of home in my work and perhaps see themselves in it. Though this is a subject central to my work, it really came to the forefront in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was in isolation with my mother and sister for much of it and that was when I returned to painting. Painting was also the one thing I could do at home and I did it daily. I then switched to watercolor monotype prints which I printed by hand. That was also when I decided to limit myself to my vibrant limited palette. I would hope my palette is something that my audience can appreciate, perhaps even in their own ideas of color.