Naira Mushtaq (b. 1990, Lahore, Pakistan; based in London) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose practice spans painting, collage, audio, public art and collaborative work. Working primarily in painting, she examines memory as an impalpable archive — exploring the slippages between truth, half-truth and inherited history through found photographs, film archives and sourced materials. Her decolonial practice weaves the personal with the political, creating layered visual languages that interrogate nationhood, identity and the enduring legacies of colonial power.

Enquire about available works by Naira Mushtaq → Naira Mushtaq artwork at Between Worlds group exhibition, MeSo Ventures at The Hilight Battersea London 2025

About

Mushtaq's paintings begin with the found image — archival photographs, film stills, propaganda posters — which she deconstructs, reframes and repaints to expose the mechanics of political control and the fallacy of memory. Using a gel medium to transfer the found photograph onto canvas, she creates a palimpsest of truths and half-truths, building surfaces that oscillate between disclosure and disintegration. Her subjects are rendered with deliberately generic, almost indistinguishable features: anonymity becomes a strategy for universality, allowing portraits to carry longing and nostalgia without fixing them to a single history.

Naira Mushtaq painting at Between Worlds, MeSo Ventures group exhibition, The Hilight London 2025

Working in series — which she frequently revisits and extends — Mushtaq investigates what it means to bear witness, and the ways in which an archive of images can disseminate narratives of totalitarianism, nationalism and colonialism. Her paintings become acts of resistance: vessels of instinctive knowledge from a life lived under the shadow of despotic rule. A recipient of the International Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, she completed her MA at Central Saint Martins with distinction. She is a Senior Lecturer at Camberwell College of Art and co-founder of WAH (We Are Here), an artist-run collective providing platforms and support for women of colour in the arts, based between London and Lahore.

Naira Mushtaq artwork — MeSo Ventures London, multidisciplinary artist and painter

Education

  • Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, MA Fine Art — Distinction, Vice-Chancellor International Scholar, 2017 – 2019 (London, UK)
  • National College of Arts, BFA Painting — Summa Cum Laude, 2009 – 2013 (Lahore, Pakistan)
  • Kinnaird College for Women, Intermediate in Interdisciplinary Arts, 2006 – 2008 (Pakistan)

Select Exhibitions

  • Currency of Fame, Larkin Durey, 2026 (London, UK) — Solo Presentation
  • Between Worlds, MeSo Ventures at The Hilight, Battersea, 2025 (London, UK)
  • Restrained Despair in D Minor, Maison Pan, 2025 (London, UK)
  • The Subject is the subject is…, Pristine Contemporary, 2025 (Delhi, India) — Solo Presentation
  • Summer Exhibition 2025, Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK)
  • Art on a Postcard, Bomb Factory Gallery, 2024 (London, UK)
  • Ingram Collection Shortlist, Unit 1 Gallery, 2024 (London, UK)
  • The Order of Things, Art MaMa, 2023 (London, UK) — Solo Exhibition
  • Art on a Postcard, Soho Revue Gallery, 2023 (London, UK)
  • Land of One's Own, Vermillion & Partners, 2023 (London, UK)
  • Through a Glass, Darkly, Niru Ratnam Gallery, 2022 (London, UK)
  • Assemble, VO Curations, 2022 (London, UK)
  • Muse Residency Group Show, Muse Gallery, 2022 (London, UK)
  • Art of Diversity, Bridgeman Images at Shonibare Studios, 2020 (London, UK)
  • Karen Tronel Gallery, 2020 (London, UK)
  • Bringing the Spice, Raven Row, 2019 (London, UK)
  • Art Night London — Darbari Duniyah, 2019 (London, UK)
  • Etch in Time, Lahore Biennale Foundation, Inkster Print Studio, 2019 (Lahore, Pakistan)
  • TATE Exchange: Communi-quilt, Tate Modern, 2019 (London, UK)
  • TATE Exchange: In Another Place, Tate Modern, 2018 (London, UK)
  • In Conversation with Migration Series, The Phillips Collection, 2013 (Washington DC, USA)

Residencies & Awards

  • Ingram Prize Shortlist, 2024
  • Muse Studio and Gallery Residency, 2021 – 2022 (London, UK)
  • Bridgeman Studio Award, 2020
  • Inkster Print Studio Residency, 2019 (Lahore, Pakistan)
  • Carpenter's Wharf Studio Residency, 2019 (London, UK)
  • International Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, Central Saint Martins, 2017
  • SANAT Artist Residency, Sanat Initiative, 2014 (Karachi, Pakistan)

Teaching & Academic Engagement

  • Senior Lecturer, Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London (London, UK)
  • Co-founder, WAH (We Are Here) — artist-run collective for women of colour, London & Lahore
  • Co-published: The Sky Drew Some New Lines, presented at Urban Heritage Activism Conference, TU Berlin
Naira Mushtaq artwork — represented by MeSo Ventures, London multidisciplinary artist
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