Mehraj Textile Art is the vision of Sba Shaikh, a UK based textiles artist and entrepreneur, whose vision explores both traditional and contemporary fabric based work. She specialises in bespoke art.

Sba graduated with a degree in textiles from Middlesex University in 2000, and her first solo exhibition was in Stoke Newington, London, in 2005. Since then she has been part of many noted exhibitions, including Nano Women (London Fashion & Textile Museum, 2011), where she was the Concept Creator as well as an exhibitor. Here female artists/entrepreneurs, specifically using technology, were given a platform to showcase their practice. Sba is also a regular participant on the E17 Art Trail.

Sba is also an international artist and was invited to showcase her art at the 2013 ‘The Sufi Rang Festival’ Ajmer Sharif, India. Then in 2014 she was awarded a scholarship to participate in ‘The Arts & Passion Driven Learning’ course at Harvard School of Education, Boston, USA. Her last exciting commission was in 2015 where she was part of the ‘Fabric of India’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum. Here, Sba was not only invited to showcase her textile art installation titled, ‘My genes were made in India’ but also she delivered a taster block printing session for visitors for one their ‘Friday Lates’ called ‘Made in India’. Presently Sba is also the community artist in resident at Wood Street First.

Now a full-time artist, her 10 year-plus experience leading on Enterprise in Secondary Education enables her also to be an advisor for organisations delivering creative educational programmes at places such as William Morris Gallery; as well as being a visiting lecturer in textiles for P.G.C.E students at Sir John Cass School of Education, Stratford University of East London 2014-2017.

With Sba’s vast diverse, creative, cultural and educational knowledge led her to be part of the 2017 Waltham Forest Mela team, enabling the festival in being more inclusive and appealing to a further more wider audience. Here, she led on curating a group art exhibition called ‘Millen’ – Hindi word meaning ‘Union’ and the showcasing of traditional national costumes of South Asia (Mainly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Participants were also able to experience ‘Kalamkari’ – Indian block printing/painting through one of her workshops at the Mela.

Sba Shaikh Mehraj mehraj@mehraj.co.uk