Shahzia Sikander Quotes

I start a picture and I finish it.

I sit, I think, I make some drawings. As a designer, you cannot retire totally.

What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.

Everything has to do with geography.

Traditionally, the only way I come up with cartoons is by sitting at my desk and thinking.

Where you are defines what you're interested in.

Time is always a component of place; you can't really talk about where without talking about when.

I've written songs everywhere, and I think the place does matter.

I can't write anything if I don't know where it's set, where the events are happening - even if the details of setting are minimal.

I've always liked writing. Even when I was in art school and thought I was going to be a gallery painter, I liked to pair my artwork with writing. And so that naturally led to drawing comics.

Early in my career, I tried to bring an artistic feeling to architecture. That's really the intent and impression of what I think about: context, space, shapes, and landscape.

Something that has been every important to me in all my projects has been location, the place where they are installed.

Place is the greatest thing, as it contains all things.

I've always felt the portrait is an occasion for marks to happen. I've never viewed the portrait as about the sitter. Even when I go to the National Portrait Gallery, I'm not thinking about the sitter; I'm thinking about how the artist chose that color or that highlight. It becomes about the time, place, and context.

I know I draw without taking my pen off the page. I just keep going, and that my drawings I think of them as scribbles. I don't think they mean anything to anybody except to me, and then at the end of the day, the end of the project, they wheel out these little drawings and they're damn close to what the finished building is and it's the drawing.

I don't think I've ever done a character like this before, so I couldn't really draw from previous roles. I've been known for doing a lot of comedies in England, so I don't think that would have worked. I completely went from scratch, with this one, and used the research and what was in the script, and spoke to Chris. It's all from in my mind ,rather than drawing from previous experiences or roles.

Action can only be understood in relation to place; only by staying in place can the imagination conceive or understand action in terms of consequence, of cause and effect. The meaning of action in time is inseparable from its meaning in place.

Comics is different than writing because when you draw something you are trying to visualize it and you are trying to put yourself in that space. And when you're drawing something, all sorts of associations come up in my mind that I never would have thought of otherwise.

Knowing where and who are intimately linked.

Notice how every science fiction movie or television show starts with a shot of the location where the story is about to occur. Movies that take place in outer space always start with a shot of stars and a starship. Movies that take place on another world always start with a shot of that planet. This is to let you know where you are. Novels and stories start the same way. You have to give the reader a sense of where he is and what's happening as quickly as possible. You don't want to start the story by confusing the reader.

Memory and the imagination are almost identical. It's the same place in the brain and the same thing is happening. When you think about your own life, there are no memories without place. You are always situated somewhere. I think the imagination - the narrative imagination at least - situates you in a specific space when you start to think of a story. I often use places I know. I put my characters inside rooms and houses that I'm familiar with - sometimes the houses of my parents or grandparents or previous apartments I've lived in.

I want to draw and study a few things closely by feeling, not thinking.

I think drawing is really the basis of all art, even sculpture, film. The greatest filmmakers have always been able to at least roughly sketch out their ideas in storyboards. And black and white in particular is a good place to start.

Where you're from only matters in relation to where you are.

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.