Hamra Abbas is a leading visual artist from Lahore, Pakistan, who is well known for continuous experimentation with form, material, and meaning in her work. Abbas’s engagement with devotional iconography and architecture from South Asia lies in her ability to masterfully employ, reinvent, and re-contextualize traditional practice for the present time.

Naiza Khan is an established contemporary artist who lives and works in London and Karachi. She studied at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford and is currently an M.A. candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmith’s College, London. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally, and is in a number of public and private collections. Khan was instrumental in setting up the Vasl Artists’ Collective, Karachi and her practice encompasses teaching, curation, research and writing. In 2013, Khan received the Prince Claus Award in recognition of her exceptional initiatives and activities in the fields of art and culture.

Naiza Khan www.naizakhan.com

MA candidate-Centre for Research Architecture- Goldsmiths, University of London

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, (forthcoming) Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/about/our-story/apt

A Sheet of Paper can become a knife
https://princeclausfund.org/news/exhibition-a-sheet-of-paper-can-become-a-knife?mc_cid=bb062a3b17&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d

Khan’s work is pumped with humour and satire; it looks at the class divides through layers of local aesthetics. Glitter, paint and crystals are used as tropes to comment on the emerging affluent-class, along with the ‘bad-tastes’ exhibited through religious ceremonies, homes and the bazaar. The works also make caustic commentary on political and social conditions with inside-jokes and symbols while not preaching on a particular stance.

Saba Khan completed her BFA, from National College of Arts, Lahore, (Distinction), and MFA from Boston University, on Fulbright Scholarship. Residencies attended include: Civitella Ranieri Foundation, UNESCO Aschberg Bursary, Italy; Vermont Studio Center, USA; Indus Valley School, Karachi, Pakistan; 11^th Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course, South Korea and at Para-site Art Space, Hong Kong. She was a juror for UNESCO Aschberg Bursary. Solo shows: Canvas Art Gallery, Karachi; Rohtas 2, Taseer Gallery, Lahore. Group shows: Monitor 4, SAVAC, Toronto; Kara Film Festival, Karachi; International Art Festival, Kathmandu; Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai; Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Thailand; Aicon Gallery, New York. Shortlisted for The Future Generation Art Prize, Victor Pinchuk Foundation. Published in n.paradoxa International Feminist Art Journal, Tran-Asia; The Eye Still Seeks by Salima Hashmi. She teaches at the National College of Arts and founded Murree Museum Artists’ Residency, Murree, an artist-led initiative to support artists/writers, in 2014.

Risham Syed (b.1969, Pakistan) has a diverse art practice in which painting remains central while she also uses found objects, textiles, pattern, margins, borders and frames creating a context for the painted surface. Her work has been included in major national and international exhibitions.including the Manchester Art Gallery, ABRAAJ Capital Art Prize, Dubai, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Asia Pacific Triennial Brisbane, Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, China, Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi, National Gallery of Art, Islamabad, Harris Museum, Preston, Barbican Center, London and the Fukuoka Triennial, Japan. Syed currently heads the Visual Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts and Design at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. She is a graduate of the National College of Arts, Lahore and the Royal College of Art, London.

Ali Kazim was born in Pakistan, in 1979. Currently he lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan. He received his BFA degree from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan in 2002 and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK, in 2011. His work exhibited widely in solo and group shows internationally. His group exhibitions include: Asia Pacific Triennial 09; Lahore Biennial 01; Karachi Biennale 01; DrawingBiennnial 2017; Human Image: master pieces of figurative art from British Museum at Seoul Arts Center, Korea; ‘Dust’ Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, Poland; Treasure’s of the World’s Culture Museumsmeile Bonn, Germany; Portraits at Selma Feriani Gallery, Tunis and London; The Missing One at OCA, Norway; ‘Ethereal’ Leilah Heller Gallery, NYC; Creative Cities Collection at the Barbican Exhibition Hal London; Chosen, Artgate gallery, NYC; Catlin Prize, Londoncastle project space. London; “Drawn from life” Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, UK; “Beyond the page” Asia Pacific Museum USA; “Drawn from life: drawing form” Green Cardamom gallery London, UK; 12th and 13th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh. Solo shows include: Of Darkness and Light at Rohtas II Lahore, Pakistan, Untitled (hair installation) Rohtass II Lahore, Pakistan. Jhaveri Contemporary Mumbai, India; Solo presentation at the Hong Kong Art Fair; “Rider” Green Cardamom London, UK and Rohtas gallery, Lahore, Pakistan; Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India; Mid-career survey at Cartwright Hall Gallery, Bradford, UK; VM Art Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan; “Sacred Souls, Secret Lives” Ethan Cohen Fine Arts Gallery, New York, USA and Greencardamom gallery, London; Alhamra Art Galleries, Lahore, Pakistan; Paradise Road Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has received a number of awards and artist residencies including; inaugural Karachi Biennale jury prize; Finalists for the Catlin Prize, UK; The Art House Residency, Wakefield, UK; The Land Securities Studio Award, London, UK; Melvill Nettleship Prize for Figure Composition, UCL, London; Art OMI artist residency, New York, USA; Young Painter Award, Lahore Arts Council, Pakistan; ROSL Travel Scholarship: Residency at Hospital Field, Scotland, UK; Vasl Residency (Triangle Arts Trust), Karachi, Pakistan; International Artist Camp, George Kyet Foundation, Sri Lanka.

His work is in the collection of Metropolitan Museum NYC; Asia Pacific Museum, USA; British Museum UK; Victoria and Albert Museum UK; Queensland Art Gallery Australia; Burger Collection Hong Kong; Creative Cities Collection, Beijing; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, Delhi, India; Samdani Foundation, Dhaka.

He is also a part of permanent faculty of fine arts department at National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan.

Widely considered to be most original and prominent artist working in South Asia today, Rashid Rana lives and works in Lahore. He emerged in the early years of this century as the most energetic and productive representative of an entirely new kind of art from Pakistan. Distinct for his ideas, imagery and pictorial strategies, Rashid Rana has worked in dramatically different modes, such as paintings, stainless steel sculptures, video installation, photo-sculptures and photo mosaics.

He has shown extensively at various public and private institutions all over the world, including Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi; Singapore Art Museum; Hong Kong Art Center; Cornerhouse, Manchester; Musée Guimet, Paris; FotomuseumWinterthur; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Saatchi Gallery, London; Lower Belvedere, Vienna; the Asia Society, New York, USA; Kemper Art Museum, St Louis, USA; National Fine Arts Museum, Taichung; House of World Cultures, Berlin; Institute of the Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia; Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester UK; Asia House, London, UK; Royal Academy, London, UK; 5th Asia Pacific Triennale, Queensland Gallery of Art, Australia; 3rd Fukuoka Triennale, Fukuoka Museum of Art, Japan, Venice Biennale 2015. 1st Singapore Biennale; 1st Kiev International Biennale: ARSENALE, Kiev

Primarily known for his artistic practice, Rana in fact occupies multiple simultaneous profiles; he is the founding faculty member and current Dean of the School of Visual Arts and Design at the Beaconhouse National University in Lahore. He converges and mediates between artist, curator, academic and visionary with a common thread of an unfixed and non-prescriptive view of geography and identity. He states ‘my art-making, exhibition-making and curriculum-making overlap and converge. To me, these different practices are all forms of production.

Rana has recently been granted the prestigious game changer Asia Art Award by Asia Society along with Hiroshi Sugimoto, Kimsooja and Hon Chi Fun.

Salman Toor was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1983. He lives and works in New York City. Toor received his Masters of Fine art (Painting) at Pratt institute in Brooklyn in 2009. His paintings are figurative, varying in scale and style, ranging in subject from Art History, Queer Culture, and Post-Colonialism. Toor has had several solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Pakistan and has participated in significant group shows such as the Kochi Biennale 2016. His work is included in the permanent collection of Tate Modern. He is featured both as an artist and a writer in publications such as ArtAsiaPacific, Hyperallergic, Artsy, and Wall Street International.