Bling Master
"Three years ago I was a nerd,” states the thoroughly modern Insta-icon Sara Shakeel. Back in 2016, she was studying to become a dentist at home in Pakistan, but didn’t make it through her final exams. Medicine’s loss, however, quickly became the contemporary art world’s gain. Shakeel started ploughing her creativity into computer collages, digitally placing miniature crystals on to pictures of everything from tubes of lipstick to stretchmarks. “In Pakistan, we really love bling stuff and things that shine,” she explains of her unconventional, glamorous medium.
Totally self-taught, Shakeel used YouTube tutorials to learn Photoshop and then uploaded her sparkling experiments on to Instagram for fun. “It was very raw, because I had no idea – but I learned,” she says. “I only got 30 likes at the beginning, but I was on top of the world!
Less than a year later and her sumptuous work had gone viral. Sarah Jessica Parker was commenting on her pictures, Miley Cyrus was reposting her collages, and Pharrell Williams became one of her many famous followers. “When that happened I hid under the bed for a while!” laughs Shakeel. Currently at 738,000 followers and growing, her Instagram feed is a feast of glistening tower blocks, sparkling fries and Swarovski-studded pop cultural queens, including Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Naomi Campbell.
Though it’s still early days when it comes to her art career, it’s time for the sparkles to leap off the screen for her first ever installation exhibition, commissioned by NOW Gallery. A millennial follow-up to Judy Chicago’s seminal 1970s work The Dinner Party, The Great Supper is Shakeel’s IRL imagining of her online imagery, memorialising the traditional family dinner with the ritziest of sculptures.
"It seems like the whole concept of the family dinner is fading away,” explains Shakeel. “Families together at the dinner table is now such a rare thing to see, but I want to cherish that.” Everything from the table and chairs to the food itself – roast chicken included – will be encrusted with Shakeel’s trademark crystals, highlighting the importance of breaking the most fabulous bread you’ve ever seen with those closest to you in the age of social media.
Born to a teacher mother and mechanical engineer father, Shakeel is the first member of her family to call herself an artist, but credits the unsung talents of her parents with inspiring her work. “They are the reason I am what I am today – my mother is a great painter, I’ve seen her amazing glass painting, but she never took it seriously,” reveals Shakeel, adding that her new-found career is extremely unconventional in her native Pakistan. “People don’t take art very seriously here. A lot of people advise me that I should continue being a dentist!”
“Families together at the dinner table is now such a rare thing to see, but I want to cherish that.”
So what’s next for Shakeel after everyone feasts their eyes on The Great Supper? Well, she’ll be getting her own studio after working from home for three years, there are plans to finally start selling her art, and she’s in talks with Reebok for an exciting new project. We reckon she can leave the dentist office where it is; after all, her new career is generating plenty of sparkling smiles.
