Amna Rahman

Born in 1993 in Lahore, Pakistan, and currently based in Karachi, this visual artist works across painting, photography, and field research, developing a practice that examines gender, surveillance, and the politics of visibility within contemporary South Asian society. She graduated with distinction in Painting from the National College of Arts in, and her work has since emerged as a thoughtful exploration of female presence within urban and social spaces.

Drawing from lived experiences in Karachi a dense metropolitan port city shaped by layered histories and cultural complexities, her practice investigates how bodies are observed, regulated, and positioned within structures of power. The female figure becomes a site of inquiry through which she examines gender performativity, self-surveillance, vulnerability, and psychological tension. Her paintings resist idealisation, instead portraying women of her generation through somber palettes, theatrical environments, and emotionally charged figurative imagery.

Combining analytic observation with subtle narrative symbolism, her work often blurs the line between reality and subconscious space. Birds, shadows, fragmented gestures, and doubled figures appear as metaphors for memory, otherness, and emotional dislocation. Through these layered compositions, she constructs intimate yet unsettling visual narratives that reflect the complexities of contemporary femininity in South Asia.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Pakistan and internationally, including presentations at the Dhaka Biennale, Antidote Dubai, and the Karachi Biennale performance Noah’s Ark (2019). In 2023, she received the prestigious Arjumand Painting Award. Her practice also gained international attention when featured in the BBC documentary Dangerous Borders (2017) and in Imago Mundi, presented at the Venice Biennale.

Through an evolving interdisciplinary practice, she continues to investigate the intersections of identity, psychology, gendered space, and contemporary visual culture with sensitivity and critical depth.