Zahra Jewanjee

Zahra Jewanjee (B. Pakistan 1983) is an artist and educator living and working in the UAE. She received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Pakistan, and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, USA. Zahra was awarded the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship and Full Scholarship, Abu Dhabi in 2016. In 2024 she was a recipient of The Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Residency Unlimited in New York, and the Djerassi Artist Residency in California. Other residencies include Iowa Lake Side Laboratory, USA, Konvent Residencia, Spain, Campus Art Dubai Residency, UAE, and DAAR Residency, Bangladesh.

Zahra exhibits nationally and internationally, and her work was featured in ‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ for the Venice Architecture Biennale – US Pavilion (2018), RISD NatureLab, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, MAS Context Chicago, Guernica Magazine, and TakeonArt among other publications. She is a founder of ‘SoZa Collective’ and works as an Adjunct Professor at the American University in Dubai, UAE. Oscillating between painting, sculpture, and photography, her multidisciplinary practice draws from Nature and explores belonging and agency through a fictive chair language, "Zuban-e-Kursi," creating visually chaotic yet logical narratives that mirror human behaviours and relationships in an attempt to break free from habitual silos and connect with the cosmos, offering a form of visual poetry and an anthropological response.