Wrought with unerring accuracy, and with a heightened attentiveness to delicate and often elusive detail, Nibha Sikander’s moths and birds testify to the dazzling enchantment of the natural world as well as to the magic of taxonomical science. Presented in segments, as a row of disjecta membra laid out from wing to beak and head, her birds make a graphic transition from field guide to portrait gallery. They come across, not primarily as representatives of a species, but as sharply individual denizens of a world menaced by predators, surly winds, changing weather patterns.

From the essay 'Wandering Violin Mantis' written by Ranjit Hoskote, 2019