BEHIND THE VEILS

“As a Bangladeshi-Muslim illustrator living in England, I am proud of my heritage and culture,” says Syeda Faiza, 25. “This wasn’t always the case. Growing up, I hated my culture and my skin colour, because at home I was told to wear the hijab, and outside I was told that this was wrong. Then I realised that I was consuming only those cartoons and comics that fuelled my rage.”

So Faiza decided to show people what her world was really about, and explain to them that where she came from wasn’t a bad place, just another part of the world.

She is currently working on art for a fairy tale where a girl in a hijab befriends a creature in a fantasy land.

A lot of her characters are women in hijab; most have dark skin and black hair.

Her painting, Patterned Scarves, shows hijabi fashionistas.

A series titled World Desserts shows an Indian woman with a bowl of gulab jamuns, a hijabi woman with baklava, an English woman with Victoria sponge and cookies, suggesting that behind their differences there remains the universality of being women, human.

“Art is a great leveller, and my aim is to connect with children so they won’t hate themselves for being from a certain community or place as I did,” she says.

“I want them all to be proud of their culture and heritage.”