Sajeela Siddiq "Savior", 2023 Oil on canvas 48 x 36 inches
Born in Pakistan, Sajeela Siddiq first discovered her creative voice through graphic design while studying business. She describes herself as “too artsy for business school and too analytical for art school,” a duality that continues to shape her practice.As a teenager, she left Lahore—Pakistan’s cultural capital—for Providence, Rhode Island, adapting to a new language and culture. A life stretched between continents has made"home" an elusive concept, but Siddiq finds belonging not in geography, but in the fluidity of human connection.There is a purposeful ambiguity that breathes through Siddiq’s work. It seeps in windows and swirls into her painted interiors through organized compositions that offer structure, but whose dwelling figures remain distant. The softened edges of the figuration quietly suspend forms and disrupt any clarity of language. Stripped of any singular identity or narrative, the figures in Siddiq's work resist easy interpretation, not asking to be understood—only witnessed with amore deliberate gaze. In a world that consumes images in an instant, Siddiq slows the eye, urging us to dwell in the space between knowing and unknowing. Siddiq’s drawings focus on emerging forms through abstraction of elements borrowed from architecture, language and geometric repetition. Seemingly distinct from her paintings, both practices share an emphasis on the delicate interplay of light and form, invoking a sensory experience that serves as a common denominator, unhindered by cultural or language barriers.In January, 2025, Siddiq was invited to lead the Menil Drawing Institute’s inaugural drawing workshop in conjunction with the exhibition entitled Out of Thin Air. In March, 2025, her drawing Lady in Sari, 2019 was acquired by the McNay Art Museum for their permanent collection, after having earned the highest number of votes in the annual Collecting Texas event. Graduating with an MFA in Painting from the University of Houston in Spring 2025, Siddiq will begin teaching at the School of Art, University of Houston in Fall 2025 as an adjunct professor and continue her studio practice in Houston, TX.