Zara Mahmood
BFA (printmaking), National College of Arts, Lahore
MA Fine Art (painting), University for the Creative Arts, UK
MFA in Art and Media, NYU Abu Dhabi
Bio
Zara Mahmood is a Pakistani artist based in Dubai. She holds a BFA (printmaking) from the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, an MA in Fine Art (painting) from the University for the Creative Arts, UK, and an MFA in Art and Media from NYU Abu Dhabi.
Zara has 15 years of teaching experience in the UAE, having taught students at both the American University in Dubai and at Zayed University.
Her works have been shown in Beirut, Dubai, Karachi, Lahore, Madrid, Sharjah, Tokyo, Philadelphia and Venice, including solo shows at Sabrina Amrani (Madrid), Cuadro Fine Art Gallery (Dubai) and her first institutional solo show in the UAE held at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah (2022). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Relational Elements’ as part of the 7th edition of the Personal Structures Biennial (in collaboration with NYU Abu Dhabi), Venice (2024), ‘A Return to the Ground’ (in collaboration with Dirwaza Curatorial Lab) held at the UAE Embassy in Tokyo (2023) and ‘Nine Nodes of Non-Being’, 421, Abu Dhabi (2023). She was commissioned by UAE Unlimited (under the patronage of Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa Bin Sultan Al Nahyan) to create work for the exhibition 'Tashweesh’, held at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah (2019). Zara has designed and led drawing workshops at Jameel Arts Centre, Sharjah Museum, Dubai Ladies Club and The Pavilion in conjunction with START. She was a speaker on a panel for the global RewirED Summit at Expo 2020 Dubai, alongside football icon Clarence Seedorf and renowned opera singer Juan Diego Flores, which focused on the role art, music and sport can play in education to foster strategic thinking and build leadership and collaborative skills. Zara was one of the recipients of Art Jameel’s Research and Practice Platform grant (2024-2025) supported by Dubai Culture, funding art projects across the UAE that engage with the climate emergency.
Office
Dubai Academic City, Dubai
Phone:
+971 4 402 1522
Email:
zara.mahmood@zu.ac.aeTeaching Areas
Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Research Methods
Research and Professional Activities
Explorations of ephemeral phenomena (light, time, atmosphere) in the expanded field of drawing