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Emerging Artists Showcase: Vilnius Academy of Arts

Nida Shah

Fully empty

Repurposed aquatint etching. 10 x 26 cm



Fully empty is constructed out of an aquatint etching I made. In the etching you can see textile ornaments from four cultures, of which I am a part of or which shaped me as a person in one way or another. These four cultures are: Lithuanian (my mother is Lithuanian), Pakistani (my father was Pakistani), British (I grew up in the United Kingdom) and Indian (I lived in foster care of an Indian household for a couple of years). The ornaments are etched in a way that combines both my own drawing style and the original authentic ones from the culture they come from. I think of this bowl as a symbol of the long period during which I suffered from an eating disorder. The bowl is empty, yet full of meaning. That period is important to me as an artist, since that is when I began to form my art style.