COLLECTION: Amna Ilyas

Amna Ilyas is a multidisciplinary artist and art educator. She holds an MA in Fine Art from the UCA (OCA), London. She has exhibited solo projects both at national and international venues, including Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai, Aicon Gallery in London, and Seven Art (now known as Nature Morte) in New Delhi, India. She has been awarded several fellowships for residencies and research programs globally at notable institutions such as the Vermont Studios Centre in the USA, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop in Scotland, Northlands Creative Glass Sculpture in the UK, Kempinski Art Program in Slovakia, Austria, Berlin, and the Hungarian Multicultural Centre in Budapest.
Her research-led practice involves recreating childhood objects and spaces from her grandmother's house, revealing historical remnants of pre-partition houses in Lahore's walled city. The project challenges the linear view of history by examining the materiality of ornate architectural elements, signs, text, and symbols inscribed along facades. The project explores excavation and reconstruction concepts, using archaeological and conservation techniques informed by local narratives shaped by colonial history. It also seeks to symbolically dig and rebuild walls to confront the enduring sectarian and nationalist violence of partition that continues today.
Amna currently resides and works between Dubai and Pakistan.

Artwork statement

Ether: An Embodied Experience

Ether is a place that does not exist. Once thought to carry unseen energies, it now exists in Wi-Fi signals, radio waves, and digital networks. Our perception of reality is shaped by invisible forces—some instinctive, others technologically mediated. 
Instinct is immediate and visceral—an inexplicable gut reaction that operates through bodily signals such as fear or disgust,  deeply felt yet beyond rational explanation. In contrast, contemporary technologies—from forensic architecture to electromagnetic fields—translate the unseen into data, surveillance, and digital reconstruction, shaping a version of reality that exists beyond direct human perception.
The work constructs a mediated space of sensory saturation by disrupting or amplifying it. It is also a space to question: Which perception is real? The raw, unfiltered instinctive encounter or the version reconstructed and fed back to us through screens, sensors, and devices?

The Auditory (Blank Canvas)

Blank Canvas challenges the expectation of passive viewing by activating a deeper sensory response. An unmarked, white surface offers no immediate visual reward, yet sound emerges as the viewer approaches, engaging the body beyond sight. Inspired by remote sensing, it transforms perception into an interactive dialogue, where presence itself becomes the artwork.

Bricks as document

Walls are more than physical structures—they are vessels of memory, holding subtle traces of how we navigate spaces. Reconstructing these ordinary aspects of spaces reveals overlooked details that silently communicate to us. Like forensic architecture, where unseen histories, diasporas narratives, and events are traced down and revealed by treating architectural material as a document. 

Yuck Factor (Flesh and Teeth)

Yuck factor—a visceral, instinctive response rooted in the body’s internal warning system. It manifests through involuntary reactions, bypassing rational thought. The work probes this threshold between feeling and understanding, questioning how our bodies react to what remains unseen yet profoundly present.