Skip to content
Faiza Butt - Artists - Aicon Art 2024

FAIZA BUTT

Born 1973 in Lahore, Pakistan.
Lives and works in London, England.

Faiza Butt works across multiple mediums producing elaborately rendered drawings, large-scale paintings, and ceramics. Her Pakistani roots are prevalent throughout her work, whether she is creating work with the laborious technique of tiny dots, reminiscent of the par dokht style in miniature painting, or commenting on the social, gender and political issues faced by young Pakistanis. The use of dots also alludes to the pixel structure of digital photography. Butt is renowned for her drawings of Muslim men based on mug shot images found in newspapers and magazines in which she exaggerates and beautifies her subjects, subverting the racist stereotype of the Muslim man as terrorist.

In her recent solo show at Aicon, The Real Unreal, Butt took inspiration from the Dutch Old Masters and returned to oil painting after a long hiatus. In this series Butt masterfully depicts still lifes, portraits of her children and elborate landscapes filled with imagery of exotic birds, adorning each piece with an antique guilded frame. In crossing the threshold from public to personal, Butt’s work takes a critical lens to the patriarchal society of Pakistan and its effects on the individual.

Born in 1973 in Lahore, Faiza Butt attended the National College of Arts in her hometown, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Painting in 1993. She then attended the Slade School of Fine Art, in London, where she received her Masters with Distinction.

 

Throughout her vast career as an artist, Faiza Butt has touched upon a variety of themes and topics for her artwork. From images of Iranian wrestlers to mug shots of Muslim men found in newspapers and magazines, Butt focuses on exaggerating and beautifying her subject matter, portraying them as a source of enjoyment and gratification. Butt’s Pakistani roots are prevalent throughout her work, whether she is creating works with the painstaking technique of tiny dots, very reminiscent of the par dokht style in miniature painting, or commenting on the social, gender, and political issues faced by young Pakistanis.

 

Faiza Butt’s impressive career has established her as one of the top contemporary South Asian artists, with shows spanning London, Los Angeles, New York, Lahore, Karachi, New Delhi, and Dubai.

View CV