Shazia – Sara

Shazia – Sara

From an early age Shazia knew she had the ability to draw. But it was the ability to remember and learn by heart details that became the future benchmark of the work she now produces. The stories told and retold as a child helped her, in part, to create a palpable and lucid world deciphered only through the use of drawing.

After 3 years of studying art and design followed by graphic design Shazia went backpacking around Latin America and Africa. This played a pivotal role in her work, giving her the freedom to develop her own ideas and in her own time. Shazia returned to the basic art of drawing using only pen and paper; a process in which the virtues of simplicity unravel the sentiments.

On returning to the UK, Shazia worked as a studio designer, serving a high-profile company. As an artist, it was a certainly a complete contrast from the heady days of travelling and challenging at the best of times. To reign in on this fast-moving and often high-paced working atmosphere, she left the studio and took on freelance work for the next five years, before starting a family and embarking on a career as a full-time artist.

“I was a moderately quiet child growing up in Keighley, Yorkshire. I say moderately only because I grew up in a family full of girls and feathers often ruffled, especially in cases of critical importance, namely clothes and records! My mother was an excellent seamstress and I loved watching her painstakingly measure, cut, pin and sew pieces of fabric which evolved into the most exquisite dresses. I would often sit under her sewing table watching her foot press down on the pedal of her sewing machine and listen attentively to her stories. My mum, originally from Pakistan, often told stories to keep us quite when she needed to work. Her storytelling carried me to a benign world full of hope and love but often with a foreboding and creeping sadness that lay untold.” – Shazia