Contemporary Istanbul, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (2017); Funkier Than a Mosquito's Twitter, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (2015); Safar Nama, Canvas Art Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan (2014); Special Siri Series, Aicon Gallery, New York, USA (2011); Recent Works of Dying Miniature, Canvas Art Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan (2010). 

Group exhibitions include Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniatures and Britain 1600-Today, Milton Keynes Gallery, England, UK, touring to The Box Plymouth (2024-2023); Conversations, 0 Art Space, Pakistan (2024); Nyx, Sanat Initiative, Karachi, Pakistan (2023); The Emperor's New Clothes, Numaish Gha, Lahore, Pakistan (2023); The Figure of Sound, Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, India (2023); Creation of Eve, Artvoice (online, 2023); Figure 23, curated by Sana Arjumand, Gallery 6, Islamabad, Pakistan (2023); Facing the Sun, Kristin, Hjellegjerde Gallery, Schloss Görne, Germany (2021); Drawing Room Lisboa, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin & London, Germany & UK (2021); Pretty Art For Pretty People, Sanat Initiative, Karachi, Pakistan (2020); All the Days and Nights, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2020); Present Re-Inventions, Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK (2014). 

Highlights and Collections

Muhammad Zeeshan's work Mubarak, commissioned by The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, is currently on display at the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa, Canada. Muhammad Zeeshan has been the recipient of various awards, among them the 2021 Sadequain: Pride of Performance Award; the 2017 Nigaah Curatorial Award, Pakistan; the 2008 ACC Weimar Galerie Scholarship, Germany; and the 2007 Charles Wallace-Rangoon Wala Trust Award. Zeeshan has also been granted residencies, most recently completing a residency with Dastaangoi & Bayt AlManzar in 2024. Previously, he was awarded the 2016 Kalakriti Artist Residency in Hyderabad, India and the 2015 Lares Project, Finland. Zeeshan's work can be found in private and public collections worldwide, including Hundal Collection, Chicago USA; British Museum, London, UK; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California, USA; Devi Art Foundation, India; Walton Family Collection, USA; The Bunker Art Space, USA; Easton Capital Collection, USA. Zeeshan is also recognized for his curatorial projects, including ArtFest Karachi in 2023 and the Karachi Biennale in 2019. 

Muhammad Zeeshan boldly fuses Persian and Mughal traditions with Renaissance and contemporary elements, creating striking works that expose the powerful dance between beauty, desire, and authority. Rich with romance, politics, and imagination, these paintings invite us into a world where history is reimagined and meaning continually transforms before our eyes. 

His recent series reimagine visual fragmets drawn from Persian and Mughal miniature traditions alongside elements from renaissance paintings. By bringing together imagery from these distinct regions and periods, Zeeshan explores how aesthetics have long been intertwined with systems of power, where art history itself carries traces of rivalry, conquest, and cultural negotiation. 

The work He Is My Witch, is title inspired by Kip Tyler's song She Is My Witch, extends this dialogue between past and present. The title also alludes to the idea of power as a spell, where enchantment, desire, and control coexist, shaping both personal and political relationships. By  borrowing and rearranging classical imagery, he reflects on how meaning shifts when viewed through different lenses, and how relationships are constantly redefined by the gaze of others. Romanticism runs quietly through Zeeshan's work, a longing for beauty and emotional depth that coexists with socio-political undercurrents. Zeeshan sees these paintings as meditations on how affection, devotion, and authority intertwine how beauty can both reveal and disguise power. 

Through the meticulous language of miniature painting, he navigates between personal and collective memory, reality and imagination. Each image becomes a meeting point of love and politics, myth and history a space where power and tenderness coexist, and where meaning is always open to transformation.