But while the representation of courtly life, hunting scenes, deities and legends would have embodied a perfect miniature in a different past, Khalid's ongoing exhibition of her art inspired by miniatures at Delhi's Nature Morte gallery yields no easy burst of colour or stately privilege. In Larger than Life, 2012, a 92-by-47-inch canvas with a white surface, you see a stencilled depiction of what appears to be a human figure in a burkha. The bare but luscious image is grafted onto wasli, a handmade multilayered paper specifically used in miniatures, and there is an intricate band of gold painted over the image, apparently to halt the onward journey of the figure, which seems ready to step out of the frame. Is it a comment on the oppression of women in Pakistan or a mockery of the hackneyed portrayal of Muslim women in the Western media? In a dramatic reversal of sorts, two richly embellished carpets in bright bold colours hang from the ceiling—instantly recalling the imagery of traditional miniature paintings with their patchwork of fantastical dragons and tigers embroidered in. But jarring elements soon arrest your attention. On one side of In Two Forms and With Two Faces: With One Soul, Thou and I, the two carpet tapestries, one can spot a mesh of gold- plated pins embedded across the fabric. The military fatigue-surface of the second carpet, lushly bordered with maroon and silver, cannot possibly appear conventionally elegant. But then contradictions, paradoxes and cruel ironies are a part of Khalid's life in Pakistan. "The carpets represent the passing of time," she says, "How beauty, tradition and all those beautiful colours change with time, how they convert into something else due to violence." Similarly, the minimalist roses and tulips rendered by her are all half-open or drooping like a willow—her lament on the horrendous attack on a school in Peshawar last year.

The Eye Still Seeks

Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid: My name is Red