Friday Love: Saba Barnard

We love artist Saba Barnard’s portraits, including her current project “An-Noor” a series of paintings of American Muslim women.

In an interview with The Aerogram, Saba speaks about her artistic perspective which draws from her experiences growing up Pakistani and Muslim in Raleigh, North Carolina:

“A first generation Pakistani-American woman, I was confronted by my ‘otherness’ from a very young age. As a brown-skinned, big-haired, mosque-going, curry-eating, mustached girl who couldn’t date, eat bacon, or wear shorts, I was the token of diversity at my WASP dominated private school in Raleigh, North Carolina. I envied my blue-eyed, blonde-haired, pop-collared, seer-suckered, church-going peers who vacationed on islands, had boyfriends, and definitely did not have to squat over a hole to use the bathroom when they visited their grandmother.”

See more of Saba’s work on her website www.artbysaba.com