Heraa Khan is a miniature painter from Lahore, Pakistan. She received her BFA from the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan in 2012. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation award in 2021 and the Ruth Katzman scholarship for the Art Student’s League Residency at Vyt, New York, in 2016. She co-taught the course “Miniature painting and Beyond” at the International Summer Academy of Salzburg, Austria in 2017. She has conducted several workshops on traditional miniature painting including those at Art Student’s League, New York, Satrang Gallery Islamabad and at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Khan has shown both in group shows and solo shows in Pakistan, USA, UK, Europe and Canada.

 

Khan’s current research focuses on the need to restore lost connection with the natural environment. Because of our constant need to over-consume and pursue economic growth, we are cutting down our forests, destroying our mountains, polluting air and water, and endangering our precious connection with nature. Through her work Khan hopes to highlight the need to go back to the traditional practices of global indigenous communities. Indigenous communities lived in harmony with the natural environment. Their practices were based on awareness and knowledge of ecology and the need for sustainability, leaving an extremely light footprint on the earth.

 

Khan uses traditional art-making processes of Mughal miniature painting to create her paintings. The processes include borrowing raw materials from nature like squirrel hair, bird feathers, tree branches, and natural earth pigments to craft paintbrushes, paper and paints. She borrows mussel shells from oceans and uses them to store paint. She uses her hand as her palette and sits on the floor to work. Through her work, she hopes to reconnect with nature and consciously acknowledge that the actions we take today create an effect tomorrow.