The sixth artist to develop an exhibition of works based on The Newark Museum of Art’s collection, Risham Syed addresses colonialism, capitalism, and climate change.

Some of the inspirational artworks from the NMOA collection include American landscapes, Chinese scroll paintings, and the period rooms in The Ballantine House. The artist has created new artworks for the exhibition that will be presented alongside her previous installations and NMOA collection objects in the Global Contemporary galleries as well as in the landscape gallery in Seeing America. Syed has produced art in a variety of mediums, including videos, embroidered silk panels, installations with paintings and objects, and printed textiles.

About the Artist

Risham Syed is a Lahore-based artist who uses painting, as well as other mediums, to explore questions of history, sociology, and politics. Her native city plays the main role in her work, as do related inquiries into what the colonial history of the region has meant to today’s culture. She explores these questions using her paintings as pieces of a greater, often global context through installation and use of objects with social reference and connotation.

Her use of fabric, embroidery, found objects, along with her painting speaks about her connection with the personal, as well as the historical, weaving in history with the present moment.

Risham Syed, Pittsburgh: Oliver Iron and Steel Company, 2024. Vintage Chinese jacquard silk panels and thread. Courtesy of the artist 

Risham Syed, A Chronicle Punctuated 5, 2016. Brass, porcelain acrylic on canvas on board. Courtesy of the artist 

Risham Syed, Texts and Contexts: The Whooping Crane Diptych from The Birds of America by John James Audubon. Silk paint and thread on vintage silk. Courtesy of the artist 

Risham Syed: Destiny Fractured is organized by Atteqa Ali is the Associate Curator, Arts of Global Asia.