Alibaba Awrang is a leading contemporary calligrapher. Trained in Tehran, Iran as a traditional Persian calligrapher,

Awrang’s work has evolved to a new artistic form of calligraphy that blurs the lines between textual and visual expression. In his own worlds, “In my painting, I present a new abstract contemporary artistic reality of a traditional art form. Most importantly, my work expresses my own life experiences, my struggles and suffering, joy and sadness, love and anger.” Awrang’s work is well known in the Eastern world, with exhibitions in Kabul, Tehran, Bahrain, Dubai, Istanbul, Islam Adad, Tajikistan and Melbourne, among others. At the pinnacle of his artistic career, Awrang and his family were evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S. Department of State in 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country. In 2022, Awrang relaunched his career as a painter from his new home in Connecticut. His first commission, painted on the floor of his bedroom, was a large triptych now installed permanently in the entry gallery of the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, one of the world’s premier museums of Islamic art.

Since his arrival in the U.S., his work has also been acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, CT; by the World Bank and by private collectors. His work has been featured in the 2024 Sydney Biennale and in two prominent exhibitions in Connecticut: in a 2023 show at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, entitled Uprooted: From Afghanistan to Connecticut; and in a sold- out exhibition at the Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens in Litchfield County, entitled From Kabul to Connecticut. His work is also in the collection of the RMIT Museum and Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. In 2024, he was awarded an Assets for Artists grant by MASS Moca Museum in North Adams, MA.

Awrang was born in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, in 1972. He received his Bachelor and his Master of Calligraphy degrees at the Iranian Calligraphy Association in Shiraz and Tehran, respectively. He taught painting and chaired the Calligraphy and Miniature Painting Department at the Turquoise Mountain Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan. His work has been published in several books, including Kelke Khyal (Calligraphy of Alibaba Awrang), 2015).