Sabina Zeba Haque is an artist of South Asian descent; born in Columbus, Ohio and raised in Pakistan by an American mother and a Pakistani father. Haque’s artwork combines photography, collage and painting, to synthesize her complex relationship to her diverse Christian and Muslim heritage.

Sabina's recent work creates metaphorical cross-cultural landscapes based on composite memories of her childhood in Karachi, Pakistan. Personal recollections and psychological dramas are acted out in this environment, which is a peculiar mix of popular icons from the East and West, a reflection of one place superimposed on another. Haque creates this imaginary place or 'plane of truth', from which other realities or experiences may be accessed. Haque adopts the decorative patterns and ancient imagery of the Indian and Persian Miniature painting to depict the complex urban and domestic landscapes of the contemporary world. Haque blends the Indo-Persian miniature tradition by collaging modern-day mass-produced, photography, advertising, poster art, and urban kitsch. The result is a compelling set of “twinnings” between east and west, feminine and masculine, modernity and tradition, original and copy, secular and religious. 

In the Muslim American Series, Haque uses the iconographic image of the American flag to take on multiple roles. In some places the flag becomes a symbol representing mass cultural identity yet at other times it becomes a part of her individual identity. She asks the viewer, to examine who are they really looking at. Can we define and categorize someone according to gender, culture, politics or religion?  

By reconstructing popular icons, Haque examines issues of race, geopolitics and gender across cultural boundaries to create transnational art. Haque’s personal fusion of opposing cultural perspectives mirrors the complex, fragmented and multiple meanings of “globalization” and “multiculturalism” and their significance in today’s world.

In 2006, Sabina Zeba Haque joined the full time Studio Art Department at Portland State University as the James DePriest Scholar in Ethnic Art. Haque received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and a BA in Art and education from Smith College. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at Avampato Museum of Art, WV, Bowery Gallery in NYC, Boston Contemporary Art Center, and Los Angeles Arts and Cultural Center.