Credit: Unapologetic is a co-commission with The Harris, Preston. Photo: Azraa Motala

The Harris have acquired a new contemporary portrait painting created by Azraa Motala. Azraa has visited the Harris since she was a child, and recognised that she could not see herself represented in the collections. She worked with us to develop a new project called ‘Unapologetic’ in 2021.

Motala created a call out through South Asian women’s network and groups, her own contacts and social media to invite women to participate as collaborators and subjects in the series of portraits. Once selected the women spent time with her in facilitated conversations about their experiences of identity, culture, misrepresentation and self-representation. The group worked with curators at the Harris to investigate the collections in order to interrogate the representation of women and the lack of representation of women like them.

Azraa’s painting will be displayed in the Art Gallery alongside a portrait of her choice from the Fine Art Collection. This portrait is of local UCLan graduate Samiya who previously represented Lancashire in Cricket. ‘A big part of my life is to do with sports and being a girl from the BAME community where there isn’t much representation in sports teams I feel it is important to be a role model for others and myself’.

The portrait was part of the exhibition titled Unapologetic at Blackburn Museum as part of the British Textile Biennial in 2021.