Waqas Khan will be part of Toronto Biennial 2022

Sabrina Amrani is pleased to announce that Waqas Khan will be part of Toronto Biennial 2022.


Commissioned and invited participants contributing to exhibitions, programs, and residencies include Nadia Belerique, Judy Chicago, Sebastian De Line, Jorge González, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Brian Jungen, Waqas Khan, Vanessa Kwan, Ange Loft, Mata Aho Collective, Eric-Paul Riege, Camille Turner, and Syrus Marcus Ware. The curatorial team, Tairone Bastien, Clare Butcher, Candice Hopkins, Myung-Sun Kim, and Katie Lawson are coming together to work collectively across projects.

The art of Waqas Khan travels around physical experience and levels of perception | The News

“A few may classify Waqas Khan’s canvases as ‘spiritual’ — popular nowadays in line with the reading of Rumi and Paulo Coelho. But essentially they operate in the realm of senses. His work does not fall into orthodox Op Art, since it does not disorientate a spectator. On the other hand, the paintings guide a viewer’s gaze into immensity of map-like complexities”. An article by Quddus Mirza for The News.

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Waqas Khan latest solo show at MUSAC

It has been spoken several times: there is some kind of trance in which the artist Waqas Khan enters to develop his laborious work. Breathing, focusing, dot to dot, holding the Wasli paper, without distraction, because the slightest mistake means to throw everything away. Waqas has also explained to us that his work is like writing, as a language that reflects his state of mind, the things that happen to him in life, perhaps, even, the things that happen to the world. Events that reach the artist and he expresses in his particular language.

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Salon | A Regional Perspective: South Asia at ABHK 2016

Along with two other artists, Waqas Khan talks in Art Basel about his first steps on his career, back in Lahore, Pakistan. How he started, why, his first exhibits, improving the dot techniques, evolution. The working process from key models in his studio to actual and complete Works. “ I wanted to connect with everyone, no matter what language they would speak. That’s why I became an artist”.

Watch an interview to Waqas Khan about his solo show at Manchester Art Gallery

Pakistani artist Waqas Khan talks about universality of art as a language to connect with people, regardless of their origin or social condition. The exhibition in Manchester is preceded by a neon that welcomes in his native language, intending different Western and Eastern cultures feel invited to enter and share the exhibition’s space.

Waqas Khan review – a message of love gently invades Manchester from outer space

"Intricately crafted using millions of pen marks, the Lahore artist’s epic, shimmering drawings capture stars, galaxies, mountains and moons. He is worthy of comparisons with Rothko and Mondrian". An article by Jonathan Jones for The Guardian.

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Michael Perrett on Waqas Khan at Manchester Art Gallery

Michael Perrett’s exploration of the Pakistani artist’s exceptionally detailed ink drawings won highly commended in this year’s Observer/Anthony Burgess prize

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Hands Dancing on Paper | Discovering artist Waqas Khan

Meet artist Waqas Khan at his studio in Lahore. His work, his miniaturist technique and often based on dots, is an example of skill and persistence. Khan talks about how he was rejected several times by the National College of Arts in Lahore until he was finally admitted.

Waqas Khan in conversation with Fareda Khan, Head of Special Projects, Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership

Khushamdeed, recites the neon that crowns the entrance to the building where the Pakistani artist Waqas Khan exhibits in Manchester. It is a word whose scope surpassed the limits of welcome and hospitality in any home of ancient Persia, an invitation to cross the threshold and celebrate life with the host. An invitation to share and live a family experience. That family to which we may all belong. Inside the building, in front of the audience, Waqas Khan tries to unravel the secrets and meanings of his art through his training, the relationship with spaces, architecture, the people he learns from, the constant need of movement, the importance of returning to the simple to communicate, the emotional states ... A very complete interview by the co-curator Fareda Khan.

Jameel Prize 3 | Waqas Khan

Architect tools (Rotring), permanent archive ink and wasli paper, traditionally used for miniature. Those are the weapons of the artist Waqas Khan to create. And also those that give him peace when he works, as if it were a meditation.

The Crowning of Waqas Khan

Video of the making of Destinations Magazine shooting for Waqas Khan's feature in the publication