Onaiz Taji (b. 1991, Karachi) is a visual artist based in Karachi, working within the discipline of Indo-Persian miniature technique. He completed his BFA at the National College of Arts, La- hore, in 2016, and has since shown his work in both local and international group exhibitions, alongside several solo exhibitions closer to home. In 2018, his piece “25th December 2016” was awarded the Public Vote Prize at the Sovereign Asian Art Foundation’s 14th Sovereign Asian Art Prize — recognition voted on by the public from a shortlist of 30 works selected by an international panel. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Product Design in China, where he’s working to bring technology into conversation with his existing art practice to develop new visual directions.

Artist Statement:

While studying Indo-Persian miniature technique, Taji became fascinated by the ‘kalam,’ or line — a fascination he continues to explore by testing the control and limits of his own brush stroke. The line is central to his work, serving as the defining characteristic of the people he paints, each one unique yet part of a larger whole. He’s drawn to depicting large groups of people gathered in disorganized, unruly clusters — from a distance, the image reads as an organic shape or pattern, but on closer inspection, each of the thousands of smaller units retains its individuality without losing that organic quality. For Taji, how these figures are placed within the composition shapes the feeling of the piece and reveals new details with every viewing — capturing what happens in moments of intense collective activity, and how a group’s shared or overlapping intent takes shape. This continuing engagement with the individual within the crowd is, he says, the core of how his imagery develops.