Anila Quayyum Agha

Anila Quayyum Agha (born 1965, in Lahore, Pakistan) is a Pakistani–American cross-disciplinary artist. Agha explores social and gender roles, global politics, cultural multiplicity, and mass media within drawing, painting, and large-scale installations.[1] In 2014, Agha's piece Intersections won the international art competition, Artprize, twice over with the Public Vote Grand Prize and the Juried Grand Prize in a tie with Sonya Clark, the first time in Artprize's history.[2][3]

Anila Quayyum Agha
Born1965 (age 57–58)
Lahore, Pakistan
NationalityPakistani American
Known forPainting, Drawing, Sculpture, Installation art, Contemporary Art
AwardsArtprize

Education

Agha studied at National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, where she studied Textile Design, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1989.[4] She continued her studies in the United States at the University of North Texas, earning a Master of Fine Arts in Fiber Arts in 2004.

Career

Agha's experiences living within the boundaries of different faiths and cultures such as Islam and Christianity and Pakistan and the United States, has deeply influenced her art. Through her work she explores cultural and social issues that affect women in patriarchal societies along with the immigrant experience of alienation and transience.[5]

Academic

In 2008 Agha moved to Indianapolis to teach at[6] Herron School of Art, where she was the Associate Professor of Drawing. In 2020, she was appointed Morris Eminent Scholar in Art at Augusta University in Georgia.[7]

Arts

Drawing and painting

Working from her background in textile and fabric art and design, Agha uses a combination of textile processes such as embroidery, wax, dyes, and silk-screen printing within her drawings and paintings. She creates patterns based on ancient Islamic geometric patterns and Islamic interlace patterns through hand cutting, laser cutting, and sewing on paper. She uses embroidery as a drawing method to bridge the gap between modern materials and historical patterns of traditional oppression and domestic servitude. She questions the gendering of textile work as domesticated and its exclusion of it being considered an art form.[8]

Installation

In 2013 Agha started to explore working with light and shadow, in her piece Intersections, a 6.5' laser-cut wood cube encasing a light bulb, she pushed the binaries of public and private, light and shadow, and static and dynamic by relying on the symmetry of geometric design and the interpretation of the cast shadows.[9] The walls of the cube showcase Moorish patterns inspired from the Alhambra, a place where Islamic and Christian worlds intersect.[10] Growing up as a girl in Pakistan, Agha was not allowed to visit the mosques because of her gender. It was from these memories of exclusion and of visiting the Alhambra that Agha started to think about all the problems that arise because of exclusion and wanted to create something that would include all, regardless of race, gender, and ethnicity.[11]

Awards and recognition

Agha's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the U.S. and in countries as far reaching as United Arab Emirates, India, and Spain. She has been represented by Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York City[12] and Talley Dunn Gallery, Dallas, TX. Along with winning Artprize Agha has been the recipient of other awards and grants, including the Efroymson Arts Fellowship (2009), [13] the Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Indianapolis Arts Council (2013),[14] an Indiana Arts and Humanities grant,[15] the Cincinnati Art Museum’s 2017 Schiele Prize,[16] the Sculptors and Painters Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019),[17] and the Smithsonian Artist Fellowship (2020).[18]

Collections

Anila Quayyum Agha's work is included in the following selected collections:

References
  1. "PEM | Intersections: Anila Quayyum Agha « Exhibits". Archived from the original on 2016-09-16. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  2. "Toward an Egalitarian ArtPrize - News - Art in America". Artinamericamagazine.com. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  3. "History - 2014". Artprize.org. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  4. "About". Anila Quayyum Agha. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  5. "ArtPrize Winner Anila Quayyum Agha Talks Sacred Spaces and Religion". Hyperallergic.com. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  6. "Anila Quayyum Agha". Archived from the original on 2016-09-09. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  7. Eidson, Stacey (2022-02-14). "Morris Eminent Scholar in Art Anila Quayyum Agha opens exhibit at Columbia Museum of Art". Jagwire. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  8. "The subversive beauty of Anila Quayuum Agha | Visual Arts | NUVO News | Indianapolis, IN". Archived from the original on 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  9. Ardia, C. A. Xuan Mai. "10 Non-Western Contemporary Artists You Should Know". Theculturetrip.com. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  10. "Light and splendour: the awe and wonder of Anila Quayyum Agha's dazzling new work - Art". Wallpaper.com. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  11. "PEM | Boston Magazine talks with curator Sona Datta about Anila Quayyum Agha's 'Intersections' « Press". Archived from the original on 2017-05-04. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  12. "Anila Quayyum Agha". www.sundaramtagore.com. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  13. "The Efroymson Arts Fellowship - Central Indiana Community Foundation". Cicf.org. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  14. "Anila Quayyum Agha". IndyArtsGuide.org. Retrieved 2023-03-17.
  15. "Anila Quayyum Agha: Art, Education, and the Making of Future Creative Thinkers". Iupui.edu. 6 October 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  16. "Cincinnati Art Museum". Cincinnati Art Museum. Retrieved 2020-02-01.
  17. "Joan Mitchell", Wikipedia, 2019-12-26, retrieved 2020-02-01
  18. Institution, Smithsonian. "Smithsonian Announces Its 2020 Artist Research Fellows". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
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