Remixing Culture with Amna Asghar

Filmed by Juan Luis Matos and edited by Monica Sorelle of Preguntas Studio

Amna Asghar, inaugural Commissioner Detroit artist, is a painter.

She looks to the American experience through a multitude of cultural motifs: from her family's Pakistani popular ephemera to Disney movies to Jean-Léon Gérôme's orientalist paintings, to Hudson River School works, to currents of contemporary political thought. Amna draws from her own life in the Detroit area where she grew up and now resides, making sophisticated works that mix imagery across cultures, creating conversation between communities.

Amna received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014, and her work was featured in the Armory Show FOCUS section with Harmony Murphy Gallery, curated by Jarrett Gregory. She has shown at Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York, NY; Super Dutchess, New York, NY; Hotel Art Pavilion, Brooklyn, NY; Hawkeye Crates, Brooklyn, NY; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; Knockdown Center, Queens, NY; Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC and Para Site, Hong Kong, CN. Her work was also recently included in the group exhibition Parallels and Peripheries, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah at VisArts, Rockville, MD. She had her second solo exhibition at Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York, NY in the Fall of 2019. Amna’s first museum solo was in Spring of 2021 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

In a unique offering for Commissioner, Amna has created a series of original paintings available individually, or alongside commissioned works by Judy Bowman and Darryl DeAngelo Terrell. Twenty percent of proceeds of sale benefit We The People of Detroit, an organization that educates and empowers Detroit residents on issues related to civil rights, land, water, education and democracy. Learn more.