Ibtisam Tasnim Zaman

Ibtisam Tasnim Zaman

* 1995 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Lives and works in New York City, USA.

Ibtisam Tasnim Zaman is a multidisciplinary (quadrilingual) Black, American, Oklahoma native, Muslim raised, lesbian artist. She left the US in 2001 at the age of six years old, due to the rise of violence against Muslims post 9/11. These intersecting experiences of her identities inspire her work. Zaman’s art is an active and engaged invocation that delves into untold narratives of human emotions, the lives we are born into and then limited by. The pieces explore the surreal landscapes of human consciousness. She approaches making with a conceptual sociologist’s lens. Reading’s a core part of her process and practice. Through books, she reads, studies, and archives aspects of the human condition. Through painting, sculpture, and poetry, her body of work explorers the human capacity for tenderness and vulnerability. Drawing inspiration from tarot cards, runes, and the Quran; she investigates symbolism of systemic oppressions, and cultural conditioning’s affects on self perception. She uses soft sculptures and cut out borders within canvas to clarify the ambiguity of far and near places; to humanize identities of people regardless of ethnicity, education, sexuality, or gender.This work is her determination for truth, empowerment, and liberation.

Ibtisam’s art practice consists of creative writing, poetry performance, narrative painting, and community projects. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ibtisam moved at age six to England, followed by the UAE. Her mother made the decision shortly after 9/11 to escape the violence that Muslims and BIPOC are still facing today. From thirteen onwards, she lived between the UAE and India over the proceeding nine years. Ibtisam’s work has exhibited nationally with New York Health and Hospitals Arts and Medicine Program with Residency Unlimited, funded by the Laurie M TischIllumination Fund. She’s exhibited in group and duo exhibitions as well as US based residencies including Governors Island through RU at KODA house. In addition she has taken part in academic panel discussion concerning Blackness, femininity, and healing, and been invited as a guest lecturer to Montclair University. In 2023, Zaman was awarded a NYSCA grant to develop her project ‘The Captive Maternal Realm’, formerly titled ‘Stolen Women’, and showcased her work at ‘The Other Art Fair’ in Brooklyn NY. Internationally, Ibtisam performed in the UAE, and her work has featured in The Gender Bender Exhibition by The Sandbox Collective and the Goethe Institut, in Bangalore, India. Where she debuted her first narrative portrait, Al Awra The Intimate Parts. She moved back to the states after receiving her Bachelor’s of Arts, with a triple major in Sociology, Economics and History, from Bangalore University in India. She now lives in NYC, where she works as a full time artist, art educator, writer, and poet. For 2024, she completed a residency at Wave Hill in the Bronx, New York, and a six month fully funded residency in Basel, Switzerland. She is currently a resident in a ten month long residency program in NY in September. Zaman recently had an exhibition at the Kunsthaus Baselland, and a solo show at Brownsville Museum of Fine Art.