Daughter of The Moon

Shireen is a Lahore-based visual artist, educator, and independent curator. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Painting from the National College of Arts, Lahore (2015). Shireen’s work primarily focuses on surreal pen and ink drawings, exploring themes of culture, identity, and the transformation of female gender roles. Her practice delves into the often-hidden structures that influence societal perceptions of beauty, reality, and the female experience, particularly within East Asian cultural contexts.

In 2022, Shireen curated Bun Lay Sapnay Apnay at the Alhamra Arts Council, Lahore, in collaboration with GharPar, and co-curated 12a.m., an exhibition exploring virtual and augmented reality for Zaaman Art, New York, in 2020. Her work has been showcased internationally, including exhibitions in Bursa, Turkey, where her painting was added to the permanent collection of the Bursa Migration History Museum (2017), and participation in the 1st South Asian International Art Camp in Nepal (2018). Additionally, she was nominated by the Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) to attend the SAARC Artist Camp in Bhutan (2016).

Shireen’s work embodies an array of ideologies and phenomena surrounding culture, female beauty, reality, dreams, and change. In this particular piece, the pen and ink medium seeks to reveal the often-overlooked simplicity within the intricate mechanisms and structures of East Asian culture—specifically in the manufacturing of female gender and identity.

This work reflects her contemplations on the socio-political forces, both overt and covert, that shape the transformation of the female body and mind. It examines the ways in which these forces interact—whether through collision or fusion—between cultural constructs and the female experience. In many ways, this piece also stands as a tribute to the resilience and courage of Eastern women, who persist in seeing, hearing, and speaking the positive despite the shadow play of suppression and constraint.