Haya Zaidi’s practice explores identity and selfhood, questioning representations of archetypal femininity through the symbolic language of South Asian mythology and the visual traditions of Indo-Persian miniature painting. In these visual manuscripts, women were primarily depicted through a patriarchal lens, heavily idealized, sensual, and defined in relation to men. Mughal miniatures, influenced by Indian classical aesthetics, frequently employed the ‘Ashtanayika’ concept from texts such as the Natyashastra and Rasamanjari, portraying eight archetypal heroines in love — the waiting, the pining, the deceived, the defiant lover, among others. These recurring figures reveal how women were depicted as emotional extensions of male protagonists, their identities framed within the confines of devotion, longing, and desire.

Zaidi reconfigures this inherited cultural imagery to consider how the feminine is represented, claimed, and embodied, focusing on sovereignty, interiority, and the ways women locate power within themselves. Through a symbolic and psychological lens, her paintings explore the confrontation with one’s inner darkness and the transformation that follows, where fear becomes a site of strength and the feminine emerges as a force of authority, self-possession, and renewal. Her work also reflects the contemporary female experience in South Asia, marking a cultural threshold in which women increasingly assert agency over their own narratives.
Bridging the visual and the literary through Urdu and Persian poetry, Zaidi reflects on suffering, desire, longing, and the human pursuit of the divine. These themes inform her reflections on spirituality and philosophy while tracing the emotional and cultural realities of South Asian womanhood.