Sarah Ahmad’s artwork has been featured in exhibitions in galleries and cultural centers throughout the United States and in the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, including the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates, public art projects at the Nashville International Airport and the Regional One Hospital in Tennessee, and solo shows in Pakistan and the United States. She was recently interviewed by the National Public Radio in the United States as a Focus artist for the Concept show curated by Heather Pesanti, the Chief Curator of Contemporary Austin. She has been selected to create and installation for the Greenwood Art Project in 2021.

Ahmad has been a finalist and shortlisted for various awards, received the New York Center for Photographic Art Juror’s Award, a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and has participated in numerous artists residencies including the LA Summer Residency at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California, and a residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was awarded the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in 2019 and 2020 and received the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition Grant in 2019. She received an MFA from the Memphis College of Art, MA Education from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and BA Fine Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently teaching at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.

Fractured Cosmos Statement

Fractured Cosmos is an artistic inquiry into universal identity and the human condition that transcends borders and categorizations. Ubiquitous in nature, the human body, and the cosmos, the patterns of the cosmic web are the fundamental structure of the universe, identical to the structure of dendrites and the neural networks in the human brain.

My work encompasses themes of identity, migration, displacement, belonging, rebuilding life after destructive experiences, and what it means to create a space for oneself in the world. The Fractured Cosmos pen and ink drawings are inspired by nature—in its constantly changing state, including parts of trees, rocks, driftwood, and natural fractured patterns—and transforming these into new forms, serving as metaphor for creating harmonious realities from broken parts. Networks simulating the cosmic web and dendrites are layered in these drawings with Islamic geometric patterns symbolizing harmony and unity, and reorganizing similar and disparate elements to create new systems.

Beyond the contexts of cultures and places, transcending boundaries and categorizations, time stands still. In these moments, in the rhythm of creation, I feel free. Imbuing this freedom into my work, I investigate interconnectedness through common patterns in the human body, nature, and in the cosmos.