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 A. SULTANA:  student (in perpetuity) ✱ artist (amateur) ✱ journalist (kind of) ✱ art historian (aspiring)
_{ISTP-T 6w5 • chaotic neutral • melancholic (what?)}

DIRECTORY

✱ Illustration/Sketchbook
✱ Published Works (The Mercury, The Retrograde, AMP)
✱ Published Writing (Glasstire, Interalia, ADVA, MENARAH, etc.)
✱ Coursework
         • e.g. Magno (the Game) (2023)
✱ Graphic Design
         • e.g. Teen Learning Wizards (2021-2022)
         • e.g. Crow Museum of Asian Art (2025-present)

To view older projects, click the button below.

• OLDER WORK (2017 to 2021)

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A. SULTANA is a Bangladeshi-American artist, journalist, and art historian based in Dallas, TX. Sultana earned her B.A. in Visual and Performing Arts (Art History Concentration) at The University of Texas at Dallas in May 2025; she will graduate with her M.A. in Art History from The Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History at UT Dallas in December 2026.An interdisciplinary scholar, Sultana's creative background lends itself in her studies. Her research interests lie in formal analysis; social art history; cultural memory, commemoration/memorialization, and identity formation; famine studies; (post)coloniality; sociocultural multiplicities; and Islamic and South Asian art history. Currently, Sultana specializes in 20th century Bengali and Bangladeshi art history, and places a particular focus on investigating art & material culture from the Bengal Famine of 1943.Ironically, Sultana's short-lived experience as a pharmacy technician pushed her back into the creative world. With nearly 10 years of studio art experience, muscle memory was not an instinct she could easily ignore as an undergraduate student.

From 2021-2022, I was the Director of Marketing for Teen Learning Wizards, a local non-profit volunteering organization focused on breaking down educational barriers. TLW allows high school and college volunteers to serve as a mentor to K-6 mentee students, where they share one-on-one tutoring sessions for core subjects like math, science, social studies, and language arts - for free!Within my administrative duties, I was also in charge of maintaining TLW's online presence: not only did I maintain TLW's social media platforms (like their Instagram page), but I was also tasked with molding TLW into a cohesive brand. My responsibilities in creating TLW's visual identity included creating infographics, posters, advertisements, and other visual assets - all by hand.My work with TLW helped me understand how to build an identity from the ground up. I have absolutely no experience in proper marketing, but working with TLW was a great way to learn how hard it is to fight against social media algorithms. Doing such intensive graphic design work also helped me sharpen my eye for future work; while the designs shown here isn't perfect, the following breadths of work showcase my experimentation and ambition.All work pictured below was made in Clip Studio Paint using a Wacom Intuos tablet.

PICTURED: a series of banners, flyers, and other assets for the use of Teen Learning Wizards

In high school, I participated in one too many extracurricular clubs, so I was often tasked with all things artsy. These flyers/graphics were used both physically and digitally. With no prior experience in graphic design, I had to learn how to balance visual assets and effectively communicate information at the same time. These designs were a fun way for me to explore the resources and limitations of CSP, while developing my skills from the ground up.All work pictured below was made in Clip Studio Paint using a Wacom Intuos tablet.PICTURED: graphic designs from 2019-2021

PICTURED ABOVE: images of selected pieces and progress photos

As part of the curriculum of my high school's Visual Arts Magnet, I took AP 2D design in 11th grade, which is important for two reasons:(1)   COVID cut our school year in half.
(2) Collegeboard implemented widespread changes to the AP Art classes. Instead of submitting a portfolio of 12 "Breadth" pieces and a 12-piece "Concentration" series, Collegeboard now required a 15-piece "Sustained Investigation" and 5 "Selected Works." After years of making my own Concentrations through the Art Magnet, such a change meant that I had no idea what Collegeboard was expecting now. These new requirements pushed me to refine my technical skills and broaden my ideation, laying the foundation for the skills I've developed now.For my AP 2D "Sustained Investigation," my portfolio consisted of 10 pieces about the juxtaposition of American and Bengali culture. As a first-generation Bengali-American, everything from my name to my habits are informed by cross-meshed cultural experiences. To this day, my identity is something I am still figuring out; at the time, this portfolio was a channel through which I could analyze the spheres of influences around me and digest my identity on my own terms.My AP 2D portfolio received a 5.Please click here to view my entire portfolio, along with the visual development and research for each piece.All works were created in Clip Studio Paint using a Wacom Intuos tablet.

RIGHT: concept art and final product of "Shakespearean Moonlight" for VASE 2019(This piece was showcased at the Blue Print Gallery's Dallas Young Artist Exhibition in January of 2020.)

When it comes to illustration, I love working with the human form and designing characters! I like experimenting with medieval, fantasy, and avant-garde styles; I constantly borrow and recycle what I see from anime, video games, and other popular media.Part of my goals in character design also boils down to the everyday and the mundane (à la cool-looking strangers you'd spot on the bus, familiar classmates you've sat next to, and ordinary humans living their lives - no individual looks the exact same as the people around them).Representation and diversity in visual media are powerful tools: they empower the unseen and shed light on the unknown. I design characters that I can see aspects of myself in for two reasons:
(1) because I aspire to be them (many of my characters have blue hair because I've wanted blue hair since I was thirteen) or
(2) because I needed to see them when I was younger, to prove that people like me are seen, are heard, and can exist with confidence and comfort in their identity. I hope that others can point and see themselves in my work as well.

Left: I'm a sucker for character sheets.Above: Animation is something I've tried (and failed) to teach myself, time and time again. It's hard! This was a scrapped summer project, featuring D&D NPCs I designed for a homebrew campaign.

Here's a tour of my sketchbook!I kept up with this during the first half of 2020. Please click on the pictures on the right to view each sketchbook spread.One of my goals (for the near future) is to start another sketchbook and finish one. Making layouts in this sketchbook was relaxing; additionally, the idea of a "junk journal," where I could keep papers that I didn't want to throw away, is something that's always fascinated me. Collaging/using mixed media, in general, is also super fun! I like finding new ways to incorporate patterns and textures into my work.

I entered UTD with some applicable art credits (e.g. ARTS 2380: Visual Design Foundations). Under my curriculum as a Visual and Performing Arts major (with an Art History concentration), I have taken the following courses:(Click the hyperlinks to jump to each section of work.)• ARTS 3367: Figure Drawing (Fall 2023)
• ARTS 3383: Digital Drawing (Fall 2023)
         ✱ SEE: Magno (2023)

I Wish I Had a Pool (2023) was made using digital media (Clip Studio Paint). This piece is 11 x 17 inches.("Ecotone is a term from the field of ecology that describes the area where two different habitat types or communities come together. They are areas of steep transition between ecological communities, ecosystems, or ecological regions. Ecotones occur at multiple spatial scales and range from natural boundaries to human-generated ecotones. Various studies have shown that species richness and abundances tend to peak in ecotonal areas, though exceptions to these patterns occur. Recent evidence suggests that ecotones may also be speciation centers. Some researchers argue that ecotones deserve high conservation investment, potentially serving as speciation and biodiversity centers. Because ecotones are often small in size and relatively rich in biodiversity, their conservation may be cost effective.")

Magno is a board-game-turned-compendium pitch that I created for my final project for ARTS 3383 (Digital Drawing) at UTD. The culmination of my work is a website that acts as my primary proposal: magnothegame.carrd.co.In this party-drawing-telephone game, players switch between the role of a Client and an Apprentice. Each round, the Client draws random cards to form the Drawing Prompt and selects the winning design from the Apprentice's drawings; upon victory, Apprentices amass Favor Tokens, and may receive special advantages from their supervising Artist.

December 4, 2024: "Bring Our Rocks Back!"

I have contributed to several of the campus print publications at UT Dallas.The Mercury is UTD's student newspaper. I worked as a staff artist from Fall 2023 to Spring 2024, as the Social Media Manager in Spring 2024, and as the Graphics Editor from May 2024 to September 2024. The Mercury is available in print & online, and is generally published every two weeks on Mondays during long semesters.The Retrograde is UTD's independent student newspaper, formed after The Mercury went on strike in Fall 2024. I served as the Graphics Editor from September 2024 to November 2025. Alongside my duties in overseeing the graphics department, I formed the publication's branding identity by designing the logo, color scheming, and letterhead for the print publication. The Retrograde is available in print and online, and is generally published every two weeks online.AMP is UTD's student-run opinion and satire magazine. I worked as a staff contributor from Fall 2023 to Spring 2024. AMP is generally published once a month during long semesters, and is available in print & online.(Scroll down or click on the buttons to jump to the corresponding sections.)

• The Mercury
• The Retrograde
• AMP

CONTRIBUTOR TAGSThe Mercury
The Retrograde

Magno is a board-game-turned-compendium pitch that I created for my final project for ARTS 3383 (Digital Drawing) at UTD.In this party-drawing-telephone game, players switch between the role of a Client and an Apprentice. Each round, the Client draws random cards to form the Drawing Prompt and selects the winning design from the Apprentice's drawings; upon victory, Apprentices amass Favor Tokens, and may receive special advantages from their supervising Artist.The culmination of my work is a website that acts as my primary proposal: magnothegame.carrd.co. The video on the left shows a preview of the website, but click on the link above to visit the website for Magno!

November 1, 2026

At first glance, the Museum of Asian Texans is unassuming. To its visitors, glass doors provide a glimpse into the museum’s interior space, revealing rustic brick walls and pristine white walls alike — suitable for the building’s past life as a hub for operations for Sears and Roebuck from 1914, and fitting for the standards of a contemporary gallery space today. The space is small, but hosts a trove of lived experiences of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community of Dallas across a myriad of objects, from a grandmother’s tobacco-smoking set, an ever-expanding archival collection in the museum’s community library, and the museum’s ongoing exhibitions.Dr. Ali Alibhai and I toured the museum on a quiet Sunday afternoon, which set the scene quite perfectly for our visit. As the only two visitors at noon, we were given the breathing room to sit down with the art (or, in this case, photos) on display and reflect on things — not only about our perceptions of the work itself, but about our complicity in the broader subject matter of the then-current show.“Sakeenah,” an exhibition featuring the works of photojournalist Ya’akub Ira, demonstrates the fight for justice among pro-Palestine protesters from Dallas, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia through photos taken over the course of eight years, from 2017 to 2025. Ira’s work provides vignettes of various protests, as if live action is being played out through a static medium. As Dr. Alibhai and I looked through the photos, taken from near and far — some vistas were even taken at UT Dallas, our native campus — we recognized faces and connected memories of our own struggles with the views on the wall.

All photos were taken by me with a Nikon D3400.IMAGE #1: Dr. Alibhai examines a series of photographs from “Sakeenah."
IMAGE #2: The title wall of “Sakeenah.”
IMAGE #3: Ira captured a scene of gathering crowds during the May 1, 2024 demonstration at UT Dallas.
IMAGE #4: Captured in motion, a demonstrator waves a Palestine flag.
IMAGE #5: An interior view of the community library and archive space inside the Museum of Asian Texans.
IMAGE #6: Framed works documenting civic demonstrations across Texas and Washington, D.C.
IMAGE #7: A series of photos documenting civic demonstrations across Texas and Washington, D.C.
IMAGE #8: A close-up shot of the community library and archive space at the Museum of Asian Texans.

October 9, 2026 (Volume 11)

From May to November 2025, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art featured works from over 31 artists across the 19th century to contemporary times in "East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian-American Art." Organized by Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center, where it originally ran from 2022 to 2023, the exhibition’s multimedia works spanned six designated themes to represent the multi-hyphenated experiences of Asian American artists’ integration into America amid an ever-changing sociopolitical climate. While "East of the Pacific" is deliberate in the narrative it weaves—as shown from the artistic perspective of workers and urbanites alike—its curatorial scope is limiting and narrow. In particular, the absence of work from South and Southeast Asian American artists jeopardizes the holistic picture the exhibition attempts to paint of the “Asian-American” identity. In spite of this oversight, "East of the Pacific" nonetheless platforms the participating artists’ work in a celebration of heritage, community-building, and resilience.(To access the full review, please email me for more information.)

IMAGE #1: William Hahn, Logging Saratoga Gap, California 1880, 1880. Oil on canvas, unknown dimensions, The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2021.147 (Public Domain; Gift of Donald Brewster in Honor of Professor Dwight Miller). Photograph provided by The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
IMAGE #2: Toshio Aoki, Persimmons in an Indian Basket, 1895, oil on canvas, 24.5 x 32.1 inches, 62.2 x 81.6 centimeters, The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2020.21 (Public Domain; The Michael Donald Brown Collection, made possible by the William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Art Acquisition Fund and the Asian American Art Initiative Acquisitions Fund). Photograph provided by The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
IMAGE #3: Matsusaburo George Hibi, Wings, 1930. Oil on canvas, 65 x 54.75 x 3 inches, 165.1 x 139.1 x 7.6 centimeters, The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2020.55 (Public Domain; The Michael Donald Brown Collection, made possible by the William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Art Acquisition Fund and the Asian American Art Initiative Acquisitions Fund; funding for the conservation of this artwork was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project). Photograph provided by The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
IMAGE #4: Theodore Wores, A Lesson in Flower Arrangement, ca. 1893. Oil on canvas, 25.1 x 30.25 inches, 63.8 x 76.8 centimeters, The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1995.163 (Public Domain; Gift of Drs. A. Jess and Ben Shenson). Photograph provided by The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.

ABOUT THE Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA) JOURNAL

Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas is a peer-reviewed journal that features multidisciplinary scholarship on intersections between visual culture studies and the study of Asian diasporas across the Americas. Perspectives on and from North, Central and South America, as well as the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean are presented to encourage the hemispheric transnational study of multiple Americas with diverse indigenous and diasporic populations. The broad conceptualization of the Americas as a complex system of continual movement, migratory flows and cultural exchange, and Asian diaspora as an analytical tool, enables the critical examination of the historically under-represented intersections between and within, Asian Canadian Studies, Asian American Studies, Asian Latin American Studies, Asian Caribbean Studies, and Pacific Island Studies. The journal explores visual culture in all its multifaceted forms, including, but not limited to, visual arts, craft, cinema, film, performing arts, public art, architecture, design, fashion, media, sound, food, networked practices, and popular culture. It recognizes the ways in which diverse systems of visualities, inclusive of sensorial, embodied experience, have shaped and embedded meanings within culturally specific, socio-political and ideological contexts.

April 25, 2026

Despite the rain and gloomy weather blanketing DFW this weekend, the 2026 Dallas Art Fair saw a busy turnout, with the two-story Fashion Industry Gallery bustling with action. As a first-time attendee of the fair, I felt out of my element when I first stepped in. Although I saw a diverse crowd — including people my age and people “dressed down” in jeans — I also saw visitors in their Sunday’s best (or Saturday’s best, more accurately) frequenting the space in tour groups and admiring work just as I was.More shockingly, some visitors were soliciting the price of the art on display. As a broke graduate student, I already knew I didn’t have the budget to own any of these pieces, but I think the reality of things really set in when I overheard a gallery attendant say, “This one is $12,000.” I took my mom with me as my plus-one, and upon seeing a piece listed at $135,000, she exclaimed, “That’s enough to buy a house!” I do not know how mortgages work (and I am too scared to ask), but that is too many dollars for me to visualize. An obligatory mention: Hollis Taggart and Perrotin also boasted pieces from known names like Basquiat and Murakami, of which I was honored to even breathe around.Nonetheless, even with their daunting price tags, the work on display was strong and bold. Hosting galleries from near and far, from Dallas to New York to Tokyo, Dublin and Uruguay, one consistent motif I noticed artists playing with across galleries at DAF was representational art — or, rather, the lack thereof. Pure, unhindered shapes, colors, textures, and lines all caught my eye in art that crossed the line of nonrepresentation, calling attention to the artist’s choice of canvas and manipulation of these features rather than to the subject itself.

All photos were taken by me with a Nikon D3400.IMAGE #1: A view of the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #2: Triptych of works by Sho Shibuya. On view at Bienvenue Steinberg & C at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #3: Murielle White, Heat on the shore, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas, 36 x 36 inches. On view at Pencil on Paper Gallery at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #4: Murielle White, Under the Cycladic Sun, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas, 65.6 x 45 inches. On view at Pencil on Paper Gallery at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #5: Deborah Tarr, The Helford, 2025, oil on linen, 39 x 51 inches. On view at Cadogan at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #6: Katherine Bernhardt, Dreamer, 2025, acrylic and spray paint on canvas. On view at CANADA at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #7: Zoe Walsh, Pleasure is a Reason, 2025, acrylic on canvas-wrapped panel, 66 x 65 x 1 3/8 inches. On view at Yossi Milo at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #8: Alison Rossiter, Darko Velvet, expired October 1915, processed 2021, 2023, three gelatin silver prints, 15 x 29 1/4 inches. On view at Yossi Milo at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #9: Alison Rossiter, Density 1941-1945, 2020, five gelatin silver prints, 22 1/4 x 21 3/16 inches. On view at Yossi Milo at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #10: Alison Rossiter, Density 1922-1923, 2019, three gelatin silver prints, 11 15/16 x 10 5/8 inches. On view at Yossi Milo at the Dallas Art Fair.
IMAGE #11: Alison Rossiter, Density 1943, 2020, two gelatin silver prints, 9 7/8 x 13 1/16 inches. On view at Yossi Milo at the Dallas Art Fair.

MARCH 25, 2026

Last summer, with 18 years and 8,500 miles sitting between myself and my home country of Bangladesh, I found myself bridging both gaps while on a research trip for my thesis. Until then, I’d been academically preoccupied with famine studies and cultural memory, especially in the context of the Great Irish Hunger of 1845 and the Bengal Famine of 1943. But, for my thesis, I was set on writing about Zainul Abedin (1914-1976), a prolific Bengali artist who documented the throes of his people during the 1943 famine. Abedin’s famine sketches — striking and bold with their linework, jarring and visceral with their subject matter — are an artifact of history, acting as a time capsule dedicated to the Bengali people’s pain and, more importantly, their persistence.

LEFT: Zainul Abedin, Famine Sketch, 1943, black ink on paper.

This is the winning essay of the 2025 North Texas Glasstire Art Writing Prize.

Anika Sultana is the 2025 Winner of the $2,500 North Texas Art Writing PrizeAnika Sultana has been awarded the 2025 Glasstire North Texas Art Writing Prize. In her winning essay, she relates her own role in carrying forward the stories of the Bangladeshi diaspora through the art of Bengali artist Zainul Abedin. The $2,500 prize includes the winning essay being published on Glasstire, and a celebration in Sultana’s honor in Dallas in April 2026.

MARCH 2026 (ISSUE 94: CORRESPONDENCES)

Curated by Dr. Charissa Terranova at the SP/N Gallery (The University of Texas at Dallas), "Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art" tackles its subject matter(s) of organisms and organicism, and, arguably, of the Great Chain of Being and Lynn Margulis’ theory of symbiogenesis. "Organic Worlds" seats mankind as conscious players in the biological Great Chain of Being — below God and above rock — and invites the layman viewer to introspect upon and engage with the commemorations of life in this exhibition.

All photos were taken by me with a Nikon D3400.IMAGE #1: Title wall for "Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art" at the SP/N Gallery.
IMAGE #2: Ken Rinaldo, Symbiogenesis, 2026.
IMAGE #3: Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs, Rootscan, 2026.
IMAGE #4: David King, Alena Sun, Brian Trelegan and Amy Youngs, Sounds from the Subterrarium, 2024.
IMAGE #5: A close-up of the terrarium from Sounds from the Subterrarium (2024). There are live organisms moving inside!
IMAGE #6: Amy Youngs, Flesh of Sun, 2024.
IMAGE #7: Ken Rinaldo, Annica Antennae: Soil as Brain 2026.
IMAGE #8: Ken Rinaldo, Sacs, Membranes, Motors, and Vesicles, 2022-2025.
IMAGE #9: One of the illustrations in Sacs, Membranes, Motors, and Vesicles (2026).
IMAGE #10: A table of found objects featured in the gallery space; it looked like they were cast with a blanket of clear resin.

November 17, 2025

In the two years I’ve spent working for my local, on-campus newspaper, I’ve served as an artist since fall 2023, a layout artist since spring 2024, a social media manager for a semester, a distribution manager for a summer, a photographer for a day and a graphics editor for a year. Through all the chaos and long nights, I can confidently say that I’ve only been to jail once.As the subhead reads, it is time for me to retire. Now that I am a fully-indoctrinated graduate student here at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, I am old and weary. I’ve seen the Spirit Rocks get taken away, The Mercury go on strike and get shut down by administration and witnessed the start of a new publication, The Retrograde, its entire visual direction being something I practically birthed. Despite being The Retrograde’s (now former) Graphics Editor, rather than illustrate my goodbye, I will continue the tradition of my forefathers and write my farewell to the paper and its staff.

This illustration was made in Clip Studio Paint using a Wacom Intuos tablet.

October 6, 2025

To celebrate its works from 1945 to the present day, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Postwar and Contemporary Galleries have been reinvigorated with pieces typically closed off to the public. Though they highlight the zenith of contemporary artists, they fall short of the ideal museum experience by integrating AI-based kiosks into the gallery space in a temporary collaboration with Samsung and Google.

LEFT: Hung Liu, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Liberty, oil on canvas and mixed media, 1989, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX. Image courtesy of the DMA.RIGHT: Naudline Pierre, Guardian (Somewhere), oil and acrylic on canvas, 2021, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX. Image courtesy of the DMA.

All responses from this form will be directed to my email (asultanarts [at] gmail [dot] com). Please allow up to 48 business hours for a response.Questions? Comments? Concerns? Broken link that I'm not aware of? TV show recommendations? Ransom notes? Send them all here!✱✱✱CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Whiplash by bôa(Not to brag, but my Obscurify rating is at 89 percent.)

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