Artists Biography

Kiran Saleem graduated from the College of Art & Design, GC University Faisalabad in 2009 with a distinction in painting, continuing up with MA (Hons) in Visual Art from National College of Arts Lahore in 2013. Saleem has been awarded the best young artist award by Arts Council Lahore in 2013. She was artist in residence at 1^st SANAT residency in 2014 and is a recipient of the ARJUMAND Painting Award in 2015. She has exhibited her work in Solo and Group shows nationally and internationally including Dubai and Italy. Currently she teaches at NCA and lives and works in Lahore.

Kiran’s work deals with the idea of duality, reality and the truth. Employing her skills in oil and acrylic medium with experimental approach, she works on ideas and imagery that are contradictory to each other but simultaneously exist thus compliment to each other. Such as, references from art history remind of classical European paintings, yet reinforce their absence. Some of her work deals with the sense of void or loss to such extent that conventional image disappears completely. By recreating images of classical European art, either enlarged or selected portions, she observes, interprets and records the process of perceiving as a remote or second hand source with an intention to personalize them and bring them into close contact – primarily to her as a maker and to the viewers of these images. Her intervention in these works is a form of critique or comment upon the division, dislocation and disappearance of time and the separation of space.