Shahzia Sikander (b. Lahore, Pakistan 1963) received her BFA in 1991 from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995.

Sikander challenged the restrictive formal tropes of miniature as well as its medium-based restrictions by experimenting with scale and media, expanding its boundaries in ways and that other artists could only have imagined. As such, she started the neo-miniature movement which has become the mainstay of Pakistani contemporary art.

Selected solo exhibitions include: Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad 1992; Pakistan Embassy, Washington DC 1992; Project Row Houses, Houston1996; Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston 1996; Glassell at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston 1996 and 1997; The Drawing Center, New York 1997; Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco 1997; Deitch Projects, New York 1998; The Renaissance Society, Chicago 1998; The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City 1998-99; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC 1999; The Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York 2000; Art Pace, San Antonio 2001; Asia Society, New York 2001-02; Middlebury College Museum of Art, Vermont 2002; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle 2003; Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York 2003; Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco 2003-04; San Diego Art Museum, San Diego 2004; Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs 2004; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield 2004-05; Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles 2005; Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York 2005; Miami Art Museum, Miami 2005-06; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia 2006; Valentina Bonomo, Roma, Italy 2006; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2007; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2007-08; IKON Gallery, Birmingham 2008; Daadgalerie, Berlin 2008; Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York 2009; Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York 2009; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London 2009; Parasite, Hong Kong 2009; Valentina Bonomo, Roma, Italy 2010; San Francisco Art Institute 2010; Massachusetts College of Art, Boston 2011; Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York 2011; Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio 2012-13; Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 2012; Douglas Library, Institute for Women and Art, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 2012; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London 2013; Bildmuseet Umea University, Sweden 2014; Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, Satatoga Springs, New York 2015; Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain 2015.