Artists Biography

Asif Ahmed (b.1980) is a Karachi based miniature artist. Ahmed graduated from National College of Arts Lahore with distinction in Miniature Painting and is a recipient of the esteemed Ustad Haji Sharif Award.  Asif has participated in numerous solo and group shows nationally as well as internationally including various art fairs held in France, Oman, Morocco, India, UK, Japan, Dubai, Singapore, Switzerland, Beirut and U.S.A. Along with this, his work has also been auctioned at the Sotheby’s in London and Saffron Art, India.

The context of Asif Ahmed’s art practice coins around the exploration of visual history of the South Asian region. The recent body of work speaks about the British Raj through detailed drawings that reflect on the faded traces of the subcontinent’s iconic history. Appropriated images from the colonial photographs are a central theme of his surface and the connections between the photographs are a mean to recall the pain, loss, sacrifices and the deprivation of the region. The graphite drawings with a tint of water color and tea stains are meant to showcase a particular time period whereas, the borrowed photographs from the pages of British Colonial Raj represent the picture of the bygone memories and the ruins of the majestic empire.