Alibaba Awrang is a celebrated Afghan painter and master calligrapher whose work blends classical Islamic traditions with contemporary visual language. Trained in Shiraz and Tehran and shaped by years of teaching at Kabul’s Turquoise Mountain Institute, Awrang’s practice reflects a deep devotion to spirituality, poetry, and cultural memory. Now based in Connecticut after his 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, he continues to create richly layered works that honor his heritage while exploring new artistic landscapes.
Awrang’s paintings merge calligraphy, geometry, and bold color to create meditative, architectural compositions. Each piece is built through meticulous layers of ink, gold, and pigment, where fragments of poetry, historical scripts, and symbolic forms drift between abstraction and text. His surfaces feel both ancient and contemporary, echoing illuminated manuscripts, sacred architecture, and the rhythmic flow of classical calligraphy. Through this fusion, Awrang transforms language into visual light, offering viewers a space of contemplation, resilience, and cultural continuity.
Artist Bio:
Afghan artist Alibaba Awrang is a well-known figure in the Eastern art world, with exhibitions and works held in private collections across Kabul, Tehran, Bahrain, Dubai, Istanbul, Islamabad, and Melbourne. In 2021, at the height of his artistic career, he and his family were evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S. Department of State after the Taliban regained control of the country. He resettled in Connecticut in 2022.
Shortly after arriving in the United States, he received a major commission from the I.M. Pei–designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar—one of the leading museums dedicated to Islamic art worldwide. He created a 12 x 20-foot triptych for the museum, painting the entire piece on the floor of his new bedroom. The work is now permanently installed in the museum’s entry gallery.
Since relocating to the U.S., Awrang’s paintings have been acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, as well as by private collectors. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum (2025), the 836M Gallery in San Francisco, the 2024 Sydney Biennale, and the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut (2023). His work is also part of the collection at the RMIT Museum and Gallery in Melbourne. In 2024, he received both an Assets for Artists grant from MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, and an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Born in 1972 in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province, Awrang earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Calligraphy from the Iranian Calligraphy Association in Shiraz and Tehran. He later taught painting and served as Chair of the Calligraphy and Miniature Painting Department at the Turquoise Mountain Institute in Kabul—an institution founded by The Prince of Wales, now King Charles III. His work has been published in several books, including Kelke Khyal (Calligraphy of Alibaba Awrang) in 2015.