ARTIST STATEMENT

Transfiguration-- a personal synthesis of clashing cultural viewpoints.

Sabina Zeba Haque is an artist of South Asian descent – raised in Pakistan by an American mother and a Pakistani father. Using the medium of painting, collage, and photography, Haque synthesizes her complex relationship to her diverse Christian and Muslim heritage. By reconstructing popular icons, she examines issues of race, geopolitics, gender and sexuality across cultural boundaries to create transcultural myths.

Costumed in traditional Eastern garb, Haque becomes the main actor in these iconic religious stories. In her painting, “Final Judgment,” Haque references religious sources, like Fra Angelico’s “The Mocking of Christ.” Haque sits blindfolded on a platform, superimposed on Christ, wearing the punishing crown of thorns. One hand holds the sword of the Hindu goddess Kali, symbolizing the death of ego; the other hand holds the lotus flower, symbolizing rebirth. In Fra Angelica’s work, 'The Mocking of Christ,' the painting itself is situated in neither heaven nor on earth but in a place created out of meditation. Haque takes this idea of an imaginary place or 'plane of truth', from which other realities or experiences may be accessed.

In the painting “Rebirth,” Haque emerges out of the delicate pink petals of a lotus flower, with her arms outstretched akin to Christ’s crucifixion. Out of her hands water flows freely, referencing spiritual healing but also parallels the wounds of Christ. In the East, the lotus flower is viewed as a symbol of spiritual renewal. Growing in muddy water, it rises up at dawn to bloom above the surface, and closes at night to sink underwater again. Haque’s painting series combines familiar Christian, Hindu symbols with Koranic verses to act out spiritual struggles and create metaphors for mystical journeys

In “Copulating Virgin”, Haque reinterpret the stories and mythologies surrounding the Virgin Mary, exploring the ambiguities and conflicts of the female role in contemporary society. Clothed in her Muslim bridal dress, Haques body is superimposed over the seated Virgin Mary. The architecture surrounding them both is patterned repeatedly with a 17th century illustration of sperm. The work internalizes the mixed signals Mary transmits about purity, female strength, and sexuality.

Haque’s personal fusion of opposing cultural perspectives mirrors the complex, fragmented and multiple meanings of “globalization” and “multiculturalism” and their significance in American culture today.

In 2006, Sabina Zeba Haque joined the full time Studio Art Department at Portland State University as the James DePriest Scholar in Ethnic Art. Haque received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and a BA in Art and education from Smith College. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at Avampato Museum of Art, WV, Bowery Gallery in NYC, Boston Contemporary Art Center, and Los Angeles Arts and Cultural Center