OPENING RECEPTION: AUGUST 31 5-8 PM

My passion to create stems from my upbringing in an art-filled home in Pakistan,  frequented by artist and poet friends of my art loving parents, many of whom were later considered leading voices of contemporary South Asian art. 

My creativity was aided by the cultural and physical landscape of my surroundings, where vibrant colors, scents, and textures permeate the scenery: the profusion of pattern and geometric design in clothing, pottery, and architecture; and the myriad hues of the nearby Indian Ocean. 

As an artist in my present-day home of Detroit, my work is informed by the tension I feel between Eastern traditions and Western ideals. As a South Asian woman, an outsider in the Western art canon, my work explores calligraphy and other aspects of my own heritage, an equally important but under-recognized art tradition. 

Through the years my passion for art has grown into something beyond a source of self expression as I seek to portray the essence of an innate shared humanity within diversity. I address themes of contradiction, abstraction and unity.

This series is a dance between the expressiveness and spontaneity of abstract expressionism and the precision of centuries old calligraphic gestures. 

Nina has exhibited widely including the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the Detroit Historical Museum and won numerous awards including the 2021Medal for Drawing at the Florence Biennale, Italy.