DERBY.- A new exhibition in QUAD Gallery features an artwork made from over 30,000 pieces of paper forming an immense and astonishing ‘paper mountain’ – a work by contemporary miniature painting pioneer, Imran Qureshi, an internationally renowned artist from Pakistan. The centrepiece of the show references those ‘..who have been buried without their lives honoured or the circumstances of their deaths investigated’. Qureshi’s new exhibition in QUAD includes a site-specific installation, recent works on canvas, the UK premier of new video works and offer an insight into the world of contemporary miniature painting – the medium he is most celebrated for.

Imran Qureshi is arguably one of the most renowned artists to emerge from Pakistan in the last twenty years. At the core of Qureshi’s practice is Contemporary miniature painting, rooted in the tradition of 16th Century Mughal art and culture. Contemporary miniature painting has been taught at the National College of Art (NCA) in Lahore since the early 1900s. Imran Qureshi also has taught at the NCA since graduation and has always considered teaching an integral part of his practice. He set up the first miniature painting ‘Maktab’ (meaning school in Arabic) as part of the Lahore Biennial in 2018.

Imran Qureshi’s exhibition is on display in QUAD Gallery One from 30th November 2019 to 9th February 2020.

The exhibition in QUAD also showcases work by six young contemporary miniature painters currently studying under Quershi at the NCA; Aliya Kazim, Altamash, Hamida, Hamna Khalid, Hira Asim and Natalia Ashraf.

The Maktab at QUAD Gallery is a live durational event by seven emerging miniature painting artists from Lahore, Pakistan: Shah Abdullah, Fizza Hussain, Syed Hussain, Sajid Khan, Zarina Khan, Tahir Ali Sadiq and Eesha Suhail. The artists are recent graduates from Lahore NCA, who took part in the first Maktab in 2018 at Lahore Biennale. They are present and working in QUAD Gallery, which has been transformed into a Maktab, painting studio, from 29th November until 10th December. The artists are making new works in the gallery space together with a group of artists from the UK, the paintings produced will then become part of the exhibition.

Maktab Artists’ Open studio Days are an opportunity for visitors to talk to the artists working in QUAD. The Open Days are free to attend and take place on: Sundays 1st, 8th and Wednesday 4th December, from 12 noon to 2:00pm. Interviews outside of these dates can also be arranged.

The Maktab itinerant Painting Academy from Lahore, Pakistan, is on display in QUAD Gallery Two from 30th November 2019 to 9th February 2020.