One of THE Pakistani artists to watch, Bani Abidi is one of those contemporary artists who doesn’t get it wrong no matter what medium she works in.

Hailing from Karachi, Pakistan, Abidi left her seaport city to come study painting and printmaking at the National College of Arts in Lahore, getting her BFA in 1994. Later on in 1999, she went on to get her MFA at the School of Art Institute in Chicago and continued to kick art world ass all the way up to present day. I feel like that’s ‘nuff said, but let me elaborate just a bit.

While she was in Chicago, Abidi grew interested in the realm of cinematography, which concurrently lead to an interest in the subjects of nationalism and post-colonialism. I feel like it’s almost impossible to NOT be interested in post-colonialism when you’re in grad school (especially if you’re South Asian), but alas, these are the academic scars borne by the once colonized. Abidi’s work draws on the lives of people affected by post-partition disputes, and the lives of Christian and Zoroastrian minorities dwelling in a Muslim majority state. As Abidi said in 2000, “Pakistan is actually only depicted in news media and almost never through film, literature or art," one can see why she found it necessary to create work on the different histories of the nation-state.

Abidi currently divides her life between Karachi and Berlin. Her work has been included in places like the Guggenheim, the Gwangju Biennale 2008, the Singapore Biennale 2006, and Documenta 13. You can’t swing a canvas without hitting a biennale these days, but it doesn’t hurt the ol’ resume to be in as many of them as you can!