Shazia Ahmad

Shazia Ahmad (she/her) is a half-Pakistani, half-Chilean painter and printmaker living in Brossard, Québec. Her work explores themes of home and belonging, reflecting on the broader concept of otherness shaped by her interfaith and mixed-race background.

She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists (SNAP) (Edmonton, 2025); Le Centre culturel Georges-Vanier (Montreal, 2025); The Rooms (St. John’s, NL, 2023); Grenfell Art Gallery (Corner Brook, NL, 2024); the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2022); and Unit1 Gallery London (UK, 2022), among others. She is the recipient of several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the City of St. John’s, and was the 2021–22 Don Wright Scholar at St. Michael’s Printshop in St. John’s, NL. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Galerie JANO et studios.

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My practice encompasses painting, printmaking, and the creation of domestic microcosms through handmade dioramas. My work oscillates between miniature and large-scale worlds, illustrating how reminiscence and the passage of time accumulate to create layered histories. I chronicle journeys through time and place, paying tribute to the intimate relationships that develop along the way.
Born in Karachi to a Pakistani father and a Chilean mother, I straddle two different cultures and religions while simultaneously living within a third. My work is an exploration of where I belong, paying homage to my Pakistani heritage by merging elements of the country’s material culture with personal imagery in my visual vocabulary.

As a mixed-race, interfaith artist, my hybrid identity manifests itself through the vibrant colour palettes, patterns, and themes that build my worlds. My relationship to this identity is nuanced and nostalgic, holding on to a past even as memories of it fade. These memories emerge through reconstructed repetitive elements, domestic objects, and flora interpreted in different lights across different days.

My practice has evolved from watercolour monotypes to an ongoing series of paintings and screen prints. These works bring together a palette of cobalt, ultramarine blue, dioxazine violet, magenta, fuchsia, and ecru. Blue, a central element in my work, imbues the pieces with a deeply personal and introspective quality. My chosen palette reflects both remembered and misremembered pasts, becoming a conduit for connecting to my identity.