Ayesha Sultana’s graphite drawings signify a delicate yet intriguing dissonance between appearance and reality, revelation and ambiguity—through configurations and arrangements of geometric shapes and spatial structures, in a frame-by-frame progression of image and time. On closer viewing, the smooth surface of the paper is dark but reflective, nestled within it lies an intricate mesh of frictions and ruptures which animate the tactile surface resembling the texture of metal; thus underscoring the mineral attributes of graphite. This also refers to an element of three-dimensionality produced by the dialogue between the versatile malleability of paper and the austere physicality of graphite.

Ayesha Sultana (b. 1984, Jashore, Bangladesh) completed her Bachelors in Fine Art (2007) and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Art Education (2008) from Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, where she also taught for two years. Recent solo and group exhibitions include: 2024 Fragility and Resilience at Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai; 2023 Bonna, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka; 2022 Artist’s Rooms, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; Shifting the Silence, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); 2021 Bare Bones, Experimenter, Kolkata; Do You Know how To Start A Fire at On Site, New Delhi; 2020 Pulse, Experimenter, Kolkata; Seismic Movements, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka; Line, Beats and Shadows, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; 2019 Art Basel, Basel; Searching for Stars Amongst the Crescents, Experimenter, Kolkata; New Configurations, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; 2018 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9); Lahore Biennale 01, Mubarak Haveli, Lahore; Planetary Planning, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka; 2017 FIAC, Paris; Making Visible, Experimenter, Kolkata; 2016 A Space Between Things, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka; welcome to what we took from is the state, Queens Museum, New York; 11th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; You Cannot Cross the Sea Merely by Staring at the Waves, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna; 2015 Immateriality in Residue, Experimenter, Kolkata; Approaching Abstraction, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai; 1mile2 Dhaka, Shyam Bazaar, Dhaka; 2014 Ethereal, Leila Heller Gallery, New York; The Language of Human Consciousness, Athr Gallery, Jeddah; Blue Velvet, Galleria Valentina Bonomo, Rome; Outside the Field of View, Experimenter, Kolkata; B/Desh, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka; Cross-Casting, Britto Space, Dhaka. Sultana’s works are in the collection of SFMoMA, San Francisco; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; X Museum, Beijing; Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka; and Tate Modern, London, amongst others.