Nadia Waheed Saudi Arabia, b. 1992
Nadia Waheed’s work is both allegorical and autobiographical at once. Her large-scale figurative paintings seamlessly reference both her own lived experience as well as broader themes of womanhood, cultural trauma, and the desire for selfhood unfettered by conventions, expectations, and obligations. The female subjects, often self-portraits, in her work clearly bear the weight of the, oftentimes contradictory, cultural pressures that fall on women. They also demonstrate a quiet interiority or interrelationships with other women that gesture towards the space for a liberated self unbeholden to social norms and compulsions. Her experience of the upheavals of the pandemic resulted in her work turning even more determinedly to questions of interiority, spirituality, and the search for harmony amidst the clamour of neoliberal modernity. From explorations of nothingness that is the Buddhist nirvānā to the pursuit of balance between the material and spiritual concerns, her art represents women yearning for and discovering clarity and peace. Detachment is a recurring theme in Waheed’s work, symbolised by female figures that float, drift, and are unmoored from their surroundings. Yet, these figures are never fully free of worldly concerns - while Waheed obscures normative markers of racial and cultural identity, such as skin tone, the dupattas (the shawl women wear over their head and shoulders), mehndi, and braided hair announce their South Asian identity. It is this dance between the individual and the social her art captures with expressive grace.
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Nadia Waheed - Heavy Bend
London 2 Sep - 6 Oct 2022Gallery 1957, London, is delighted to present its first solo exhibition by Nadia Waheed (b. 1992, Saudi Arabia), running September 2nd – October 6th , 2022. This exhibition, titled Heavy...Read more -
Group Show - The Storytellers
London 26 May - 16 Jul 2022The art of storytelling runs deep in any society. Even before the written word, the oral tradition of telling tales and experiences to one’s community was a way to build...Read more -
Self- Identity In The Face Of The Global Pandemic
London 22 Apr - 12 May 2021Gallery 1957, London marks their third exhibition with a group show of new works by five artists: Joana Choumali (b.1974), Danielle De Jesus (b.1987), Shania McCoy (b.1993), Nabeeha Mohamed (b.1988)...Read more
The multiplicity to Nadia Waheed’s (b. 1992, Al Khobar, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia) art reflects the various locations of her upbringing, from her birth in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents to her experience living in France, Egypt, Pakistan, and finally the United States. Having gained her BFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in Chicago, USA, she now lives and works in Austin, Texas.
Waheed has several solo exhibitions to her name, such as in Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, USA and BEERS in London, UK, among others. A number of group exhibitions have incorporated her work, most recently in the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Lyles and King, and Arsenal Contemporary in New York, USA, Hashimoto Contemporary in San Francisco, USA, and Patel Gallery in Toronto, Canada. She has been featured in Create Magazine, Artnet, Juxtapoz, and Manifesto XXI, and in the 2020 New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) Fair.
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Sweet Jane in Fields of Daises: Celebrating Emerging Female Artists
Philips -
Tired of being 'fetishized and invisible,' Asian artists are changing the narrative
Ann Binlot, CNN Style, 24 May 2022 -
5 Tribeca Shows to See During Frieze New York
Alex Greenberger, ArtNews, 17 May 2022 -
At All Costs
BY FARIHA RÓISÍN; ARTWORK BY NADIA WAHEED, Harper's Bazaar, 17 May 2022 -
Nadia Waheed: The artist on her nude paintings of South Asian women
Alix-Rose Cowie, WePresent, 16 May 2020