Ayessha Quraishi (b.1970) lives and works in Karachi. Having received her initial art training from Karachi-based educator Nayyar Jamil, she has spent her career spanning thirty-five years developing her signature technique and visual language. Her practice employs gestural mark-making. And she often integrates drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and digital media to explore themes of impermanence and memory.

Quraishi was a finalist for The 2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize and the recipient of The 2021 ADA Award. She is the grantee of Patakha Pictures - Stories From Southern Pakistan (2023) and the British Council Go Digital Project (2022). Recent exhibitions include Flow, Mission Gallery, Swansea (2023); Sculptor/Sculpture, COMO Museum of Art, Lahore (2022) and The 2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Art Central, Hong Kong (2022). Her monograph Between Light - Ayessha Quraishi Works:1985-2020 accompanying her mid-career retrospective with the same name was published in February 2020.

Quraishi's work is in private collections in Europe, the United States of America and Asia and the permanent collections of HBL Mega Towers and the Rangoonwala Foundation UK.

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PRACTICE

I am primarily an abstract painter. Though I work in several ways across media, painting in oil is the medium I keep returning to for a slow-paced and gradually revealing practice.
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Working directly with my hands, I maintain constant contact with the surface, similar to braille. Applying and removing paint over four to six hours at a stretch till the exterior paint dries, leaving all but the faintest vestigial traces of colour. Subsequent sessions of repeated hand gestures and motions build on the residual layers in a subtle yet constant progression, gradually producing markings for a visceral language. The additive and subtractive process of simultaneously making and unmaking constitutes the essence of my practice.
 
An utterance, however faint or fragile, eloquently expresses the fullness of life.

AWARDS | NOMINATIONS

2023
Grantee | Patakha Pictures - Stories From Southern Pakistan
2022
​Grantee | British Council Go Digital: Pakistan - Wales | PK UK 2022 New Perspectives 
2022
Finalist | The 2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize
2021 
​Recipient | ADA Awards 2020-2021, Sky Frames Video Installation

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

​2020             
'Between Light' Mid-Career Retrospective, Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2018             
'All That Is, Is Held' Canvas Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
​2016             
'Open Presence' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2013             
'Liminal' Khaas Art Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
'Continuous / Present' Rothas II, Lahore, Pakistan
2012             
'Letters From An Underground Vein Read' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
1998             
Indus Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
1997             
The Art Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
1995             
Gallery Ardeco, Avignon, France
​NCA Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 
 
2023
'Flow' Mission Gallery, Swansea, Wales
2022
'Sculptor/Sculpture' COMO Museum, Lahore, Pakistan 
'Lines of Inquiry' Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan 
​'2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize' Art Central, Hong Kong
'Summerscape' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
'Well, Come Back Home' Koel Gallery and Full Circle Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
'Something Borrowed, Something New' Copper and Steel, Karachi, Pakistan
2021
'Khat-o-Kitabat' O'Art Space, Lahore, and Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2020
IPAF '20 'Karachi Ki Khoj: [Re]defining the Metropolis' NED University City Campus, Karachi, Pakistan
2017            
'Recorded Time' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
​2016            
‘Awaken Our Legacy’ Standard Chartered Bank, WTC Branch, Karachi, Pakistan
2015            
‘Birwa’ Showdown 2015, Sadequain Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2014             
'Mostra Internazionale di Pittura', Matera, Italy
'Summer Scape 2014' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2013             
'October Passage' Canakkale, Turkey
'Summer Scape 2013' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
'Intimacy' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2012            
'Abstract Art In Contemporary Russia' Moscow, Russia
'Universal Sapience' Goethe Institute, Freiburg, Germany
2011              
La Galleria Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom
2003
'Laal - The Passion of Zahoor Ul Akhlaq' Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
2001              
'Takhti Project' Sadequain Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2000              
Alliance Francaise, Karachi, Pakistan
1999              
Alliance Francaise, Karachi, Pakistan
1998              
Zenini Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
1996              
Gallery Ardeco Avignon, France
1995              
Gallery Sadequain, Karachi, Pakistan
Indus Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
PNCA Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
1991              
Shakir Ali Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan
1990              
Shakir Ali Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan
1989              
VM Art Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan

BIENNALES

2019             
International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey
2017              
Karachi Biennale, Pakistan
2013              
Bodrum Biennial, Turkey
2011              
Biennial Izmir, Turkey

ART FAIRS

2022
The 2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize Finalist Exhibition, Art Central Hong Kong

PERFORMANCE    
 
2013            
'Riwhyti' One Night Stand, Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
2012            
Scroll 98ft x 42in, Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan
 
RESIDENCIES
 
2017            
'Recorded Time' Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan.
2013            
'Hic - 2' Workshop, Turgutreis / Bodrum, Turkey
2011            
Winter Academy, Fayoum, Egypt
2010            
International Painting Symposium, Luxor, Egypt
1996            
Association Saint-Henri, France

PUBLICATIONS

2020             
​Monograph Between Light. Ayessha Quraishi - Works: 1985-2020