Between Two Homes opened on a Friday in October 2025 at O Art Space in Lahore, with the golden sun setting to give way for the city to transition to fall. It seemed fitting to curate this exhibition of familial dichotomy with the scent of change in the air.
Following her graduation, Maryam exhibited both nationally and internationally. Solo shows, such as In the Realm of Metamorphosis (2020) in Tehran, signal her growing profile. Her residency participation in the inaugural Dastaangoi Artist Residency group show Baad-e-Saba (2021) in Islamabad expanded her engagement with site, nature and narrative, resulting in what would be the start of her trademark works that render the natural and the urban in parallel: a lone tree against a wall of bright red bricks, or a shrub resisting and spilling over its cemented containment.
As if simultaneously, Maryam dives into botanical studies with close-ups of trees and bushes, leaves and flowers, stems and stalks. We see the groves in wood, the textures of tree bark, the wilted petals, perfect leaves, protruding thorns and the like, painted with excruciatingly slow intention. All executed in the technique that has become synonymous with her name now, including her treasured Vase Series (2023).
In recent years, Maryam has consistently reinforced her concept of how nature asserts itself in human territory, how traditional miniature technique can depict contemporary existential resilience and how personal displacement becomes botanical metaphor. Her 21st century depiction of nature in this practice is a direct opposition to the role it played in traditional Persian miniatures, where natural landscapes once flowed freely and made up a majority of the composition, including the background as well as the foreground. She concentrates on scenes we often overlook, like a potted plant, a bush growing on the side of the road, flowers and vines on balconies — simple, yet significant. A lot of uncomplicated patterns and textures are incorporated to signify vicinities, like in Pavement and Plants (2021); parallel layers of manmade constructions and natural elements with their simple but varied textures, all layered on top of each other like a well-made trifle.
The title, Between Two Homes, gestures to both their nomadic histories and their twinhood. ‘Home’ here isn’t a singular place but a shifting state of belonging, stretched between countries, mediums and their relationship with each other. The cypress, a recurring motif in both their works, inquires what it means to create across geography and memory.
After spending a couple of years geographically apart, Marjan and Maryam Baniasadi’s exhibition at O Art Space in Lahore brought the sisters together again. The exhibition Between Two Homes began as a simple idea, which was to finish what had once been left undone. Across borders and time zones, Marjan and Maryam exchanged unfinished canvases, trusting the other to see what they could not. Out of that trust grew a new kind of conversation; one where distance and migration evolved into a material form. Maryam’s meticulous sketches are layered with Marjan’s textured brushstrokes, while Marjan’s abstractions soften under the sensibility of her sister’s miniature practice. Each piece becomes a palimpsest of two minds, produced with each other’s permission, memory and trust.
The title, Between Two Homes, gestures to both their nomadic histories and their twinhood. ‘Home’ here isn’t a singular place but a shifting state of belonging, stretched between countries, mediums and their relationship with each other. The cypress, a recurring motif in both their works, inquires what it means to create across geography and memory.
“When you travel to Iran (by road), you see vast, barren landscapes and along will come a cypress tree on its own, or a group of them. They remind me of Marjan and myself; a self-portrait of sorts,” says Maryam. The cypress is both individual and communal; a tree that stands alone and also in repetition in the vast oeuvre of the sisters’ practice.
According to the artists, this show might be their last collaboration for a while, as a way of honouring what they share between them before stepping out and into their own orbits again.
Photos of the artwork in situ and header photo by the author.
‘The Raising Roots’ photo courtesy of the gallery.
Artist profile photos courtesy of the artists.
Ameera Khan is a visual artist, writer, lecturer and photographer, with an MSc in Art History, Theory and Display from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Khan lives and works in Lahore, where she teaches art history at the Beaconhouse National University.
