Works By Shazia

But what of the artist herself? What’s Shazia’s story?

Born into a family full of girls in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1972,Shazia’s childhood was one of being surrounded by noise, activity and commotion as you would expect from a large family, and having so many sisters differences of opinion were commonplace. Shazia’s mother worked as a seamstress, and one of the artist’s earliest memories is one of watching her mum fastidiously measure, cut, pin and sew pieces of fabric which eventually became elegant, detail-led dresses and other clothing garments. In fact, Shazia fondly recalls sitting beneath the sewing machine, listening to her mother’s stories on many an occasion. These tales were centred on a world of love and hope, yet sometimes chequered by foreboding and tinged with sadness that lay untold. In terms of Shazia’s artistic heritage, she knew from a relatively early age that she was blessed with a creative talent and subconsciously future characters and visual scenarios depicted in her work today are in most cases revisited from her childhood stories.
Through her schooling Shazia was fortunate enough to be taught by a succession of encouraging and inspiring art teachers, and on leaving secondary education she enrolled on an Art Foundation course, after which she attended a BA (Hons) Graphic Design course at Leeds Metropolitan University, where Shazia chose to specialise in the field of Illustration. On graduating from Leeds on the back of her three year course of study, she opted to do what many a student does on the completion of their higher education. Yup, backpack around the world. Well, Latin America and Africa in Shazia’s case, from which she compiled a greater creative understanding and philosophy courtesy of her mind and horizon-broadening travels. It also saw her return to drawing using only pen and paper, a rudimentary technique and application she’d championed during her formative years and before she developed an expanded illustrative skillset at Uni. Shazia believes that this process restores the very virtues of a simpler artistic framework and allows the emotional and physical sentiments of her subject matter to take centre stage. Travelling light, a sketchbook and pen was the only real means of pictorially documenting her personal journey, yet one which was almost cathartic in many ways.

Once back on UK shores Shazia sought employment, and the first steps on her creative career took her to a high profile company (which will remain nameless for the purposes of this essay) where she was welcomed into the commercial fold and artistic hub in the capacity of a studio designer. This sharp contrast of lifestyle, ditching the freedom, expression and, let’s say, more relaxed approach to the days and weeks proved too steep a change of pace for Shazia, and she soon arrived at the conclusion that this fast-paced, pressure pot working environment was not somewhere her creativity could thrive or indeed prosper. So on quitting this role Shazia instead took the brave decision to turn freelance, which she successfully did for the following five years, right up until she started her own family. After giving birth to two young boys and the subsequent time required being a full-time mother, Shazia returned to the world of work on a permanent basis, launching herself as a professional artist, and is still based in her native Keighley.

When addressing the subject of her inspirations and artistic influences, Shazia admits that she can detract these from just about anywhere and at any given time. In her own words she adds; “My ideas and inspirations are ever flowing. I can take a little or a lot from anything I deem to be influential in my work. From the spoken word, travel diaries, people watching and sometimes plain old contemplation”. It seems that Shazia is one of those slightly annoying people who has what’s referred to as a photographic memory; by which we mean she can ‘mentally’ jot down things during the course of a day that pique her interest to reimagine, artistically at a later date. That said, she does carry a trusted journal with her at all times, which is crammed full to bursting point with magazine and newspaper cuttings, acting as a sort of visual scrapbook to fall back on at different times. But then the act of translating these fleeting ideas and pictorial concepts at a future juncture isn’t always plane sailing as the artist readily concurs. Shazia says; “Transferring this in my work can be easy but also at times, challenging. If I try to guide too much information into my characters they become complex and therefore difficult even for me to understand”.

When Shazia does require and feel the need to draw on external inspiration, she looks no further than music and books to assist her and instigate the flowing of her creative juices. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s, ‘A Hundred Years of Solitude’ being one of the artist’s favourite books, so much so that she’s read it from cover to cover on countless occasions over the years so she says. Shazia speaks animatedly of the author’s ability to transport the reader into a world populated by acts of spellbinding magic and an imagination so bewitching that anyone would be hard pressed not to be influenced by its verbal descriptions and story-telling construct. Naturally this reminds Shazia of her mother’s beguiling tales of her youth, and so one way or another the artist then finds herself in the right place and frame of mind to set about creating her very own works of compositional wonderment that have fast become her contemporary artistic signature.