Born to Afghan immigrants in Quetta and later moving to Lahore for her bachelor’s degree, Farishta Mirza has always…
Born to Afghan immigrants in Quetta and later moving to Lahore for her bachelor’s degree, Farishta Mirza has always existed in the in-between, neither fully here nor there. This in-betweenness is central to her practice, taking shape as a quiet exploration of uncertainty, questioning identity, existence, and the weight of labels.
Farishta draws inspiration from people and spaces she encounters in daily life—those with a quiet, heavy presence, suggesting an unresolved visual open to interpretation. Another aspect of her work has developed from old family film photographs. Each painting begins with a figure, or two, or more, and the canvas grows around them. It is the condition in which the figures exist: present, but withheld. She hopes to build a dialogue where viewers are left to circle their own meanings, only to doubt them again. Too much clarity breaks it. Too much color irritates it. What remains is shadow and density, silence as its own form of clarity.
Through her practice, she embraces the contradictions of human experience, allowing uncertainty to exist without the need for conclusion. For answers, she observes, are never whole, never still; they live in hesitation, in shifting outlines.
Black Tea
Oil on Canvas
36 × 28 inches
2025
The exhibition continues till September 30, 2025 – 11 am to 8 pm, every day. The gallery remains closed on Fridays and national holidays only.
