Anila Quayyum Agha

Agha studied at National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, where she studied Textile Design, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1989.{{cite web|url=http://anilaagha.com/about/|title=About|website=Anila Quayyum Agha|accessdate=9 August 2017}} 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.

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.{{cite web|url=http://hyperallergic.com/155821/artprize-winner-anila-quayyum-agha-talks-sacred-spaces-and-religion/|title=ArtPrize Winner Anila Quayyum Agha Talks Sacred Spaces and Religion|date=16 October 2014|website=Hyperallergic.com|accessdate=9 August 2017}}

In 2008 Agha moved to Indianapolis to teach at{{cite web |url=http://www.herron.iupui.edu/anila-quayyum-agha |title=Anila Quayyum Agha |accessdate=2017-08-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160909092845/http://www.herron.iupui.edu/anila-quayyum-agha |archivedate=2016-09-09 }} 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.{{Cite web |last=Eidson |first=Stacey |date=2022-02-14 |title=Morris Eminent Scholar in Art Anila Quayyum Agha opens exhibit at Columbia Museum of Art |url=https://jagwire.augusta.edu/morris-eminent-scholar-in-art-anila-quayyum-agha-opens-exhibit-at-columbia-museum-of-art/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Jagwire}}

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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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/the-subversive-beauty-of-anila-quayuum-agha/Content?oid=3054114&storyPage=3 |title=The subversive beauty of Anila Quayuum Agha | Visual Arts | NUVO News | Indianapolis, IN |access-date=2017-08-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206191858/http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/the-subversive-beauty-of-anila-quayuum-agha/Content?oid=3054114 |archive-date=2016-12-06 |url-status=dead }}

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.{{cite web|url=http://theculturetrip.com/asia/articles/10-non-western-contemporary-artists-you-should-know/|title=10 Non-Western Contemporary Artists You Should Know|first=C. A. Xuan Mai|last=Ardia|website=Theculturetrip.com|accessdate=9 August 2017}} The walls of the cube showcase Moorish patterns inspired from the Alhambra, a place where Islamic and Christian worlds intersect.{{cite web|url=http://www.wallpaper.com/art/light-and-splendour-the-awe-and-wonder-of-anila-quayyum-aghas-dazzling-new-work|title=Light and splendour: the awe and wonder of Anila Quayyum Agha's dazzling new work - Art|date=13 April 2015|website=Wallpaper.com|accessdate=9 August 2017}} 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.{{cite web |url=http://pem.org/press/news/327-boston_magazine_talks_with_curator_sona_datta_about_anila_quayyum_aghas_intersections |title=PEM | Boston Magazine talks with curator Sona Datta about Anila Quayyum Agha's 'Intersections' « Press |accessdate=2017-08-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170504134750/http://pem.org/press/news/327-boston_magazine_talks_with_curator_sona_datta_about_anila_quayyum_aghas_intersections |archivedate=2017-05-04 }}

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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{{Cite web |title=Anila Quayyum Agha |url=https://www.sundaramtagore.com/artists/anila-quayyum-agha |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=sundaramtagore.com}} 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),{{cite web|url=https://www.cicf.org/about-cicf/funds-and-foundations/family-funds/efroymson-family-fund/efroymson-contemporary-art-fellowship/|title=The Efroymson Arts Fellowship - Central Indiana Community Foundation|website=Cicf.org|accessdate=9 August 2017}} the Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Indianapolis Arts Council (2013),{{Cite web |title=Anila Quayyum Agha |url=https://www.indyartsguide.org/artist/anila-quayyum-agha/ |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=IndyArtsGuide.org}} an Indiana Arts and Humanities grant,{{cite web|url=http://www.iupui.edu/~iahi/?p=5076|title=Anila Quayyum Agha: Art, Education, and the Making of Future Creative Thinkers|date=6 October 2015|website=Iupui.edu|accessdate=18 August 2017}} the Cincinnati Art Museum's 2017 Schiele Prize,{{Cite web|url=https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/about/press-room/anila-quayyum-agha/|title=Cincinnati Art Museum|website=Cincinnati Art Museum|access-date=2020-02-01}} the Sculptors and Painters Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019), and the Smithsonian Artist Fellowship (2020).{{Cite web |last=Institution |first=Smithsonian |title=Smithsonian Announces Its 2020 Artist Research Fellows |url=https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-announces-its-2020-artist-research-fellows |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Smithsonian Institution}}

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

• Eskenazi Art Museum, Bloomington, IN
• Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI
• Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
• Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
• Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
• Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi, India
• Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN

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Category:Living people

Category:1965 births

Category:21st-century American women artists

Category:American installation artists

Category:Artists from Lahore

Category:National College of Arts alumni

Category:Pakistani emigrants to the United States

Category:Pakistani women artists

Category:Herron School of Art and Design faculty