Drawing from her refined skills as a miniature painter, Aisha Khalid’s expressive and rigorous geometric arrangements play with surface and depth. Exotic bodies and Visible/invisible focus thematically on inequalities experienced in patriarchal societies, while challenging Western perception of the burqa as a symbol of repressed womanhood. Veiled figures, flower motifs, draped curtains and a limited palette appear in symmetrical arrangements drawn from textile patterns and Islamic geometry. In 2001, Khalid undertook a residency in the Netherlands that was interrupted by the 11 September terrorist attacks – and where her experience of Amsterdam’s red-light district led her to question her own expectations of gender equality in the West. Dutch drapery, tulips and Delft-Blue roses figure prominently in the works, framed within closed off structures in response to the divisiveness of world events.