Javaid Nayyar is a Pakistani-American artist from Queens, New York. His work combines mixed media collage, painting, and traditional Pakistani mirror work to explore identity, migration, memory, war, and belonging.
Influenced by Islamic art, South Asian visual culture, punk, hip hop, skateboarding, and American pop culture, Nayyar creates layered works that examine Islamophobia, xenophobia, and the complexities of the first-generation American experience. His practice brings together beauty and disruption, ornament and politics, the personal and the historical.
Nayyar is a 2024 MacDowell Fellow and is a 2026 Wassaic Project resident. His work has been exhibited at the Edward Hopper House Museum and the Phillips Collection, as well as in group shows in New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. He has held solo exhibitions at Homme Gallery and the Selina Hotel. Nayyar holds degrees from Queens College and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
