Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2025
• Kamala Ibrahim Ishag
• ©︎ Aichi Triennale Organizing Committee
• Photo: ToLoLo studio

You can find artwork descriptions on the digital map.

Profile

• Born 1937 in Omdurman, Sudan. Based in Sharjah, UAE and Khartoum, Sudan.

Path-breaking artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag has had a profound impact on debates around modernist art in Africa as a member of the Khartoum School. A co-founder of the Crystalist group, which challenged traditional Sudanese aesthetic beliefs, Ishag’s distinct artistic language explores reality and duplicity, the spiritual and the divine, as well as women’s subjugation and incarceration. Drawing inspiration from nature and Sudanese Zar rituals, Ishag’s drawings and paintings often feature distorted figures who reflect states of entrapment, evoking the mutable experiences of women in Sudan, Africa and within the global diaspora. Her works are included in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York and Sharjah Art Foundation. In 2019, she received the Principal Prince Claus Award for Culture.

Selected exhibitions

2024–25

Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA)

2022–23

Solo exhibitions, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness, Serpentine South Gallery (London, UK)

2016–17

Solo exhibitions, Women in Crystal Cubes, Gallery 4, Al Mureijah Art Spaces, Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE)

• “My Two Neems” 2023
• Photo: Waleed Shah