Berlin | Mumbai | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Current artist in residence (2024 – 2024)
at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin

2020 MA, Creative Writing
International Institute of Modern Letters
Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington

2011 BA, Art History & English
Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau
The University of Auckland

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
How to puncture the sky and hear the stones sing, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE
The Rhapsode's Tools Will Build the Rhapsode's House, [touring], McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ

2024
Vazghān | Vocabulary | واژگان , Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
As this chin melts on your knee, TARQ Gallery, Mumbai, IN

2023
Some ribs are always soft, McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ

2022
Another Scramble Through the Archive, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, IN
Yes, I'm a Garden, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
All My Books Have Faded Spines, McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
There Is No Other Home But This [with Khadim Ali],
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, NZ
Fruit Cubab, Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

2021
Bildungsroman [& Other Stories], TARQ Gallery, Mumbai, IN
Like Birds, Like Fishes, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
History reserves but a few lines for you, Enjoy Contemporary Art Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
Thieves' Market, The National, Ōtautahi Christchurch, NZ

2020
On Chroma, Sumer Gallery, Tauranga, NZ
Notes & Methods, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

2019
Some Retained Delights, RM Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Uncruising, Phoenix Gallery, Athens, GR
Bildungsroman, Malcolm Smith Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

. . .

The hybridity of Areez’s imagery constitutes a deliberate conflation of times and sources of knowledge that acts to dismantle cultural hierarchies. Underlying this dis- and reassembling lies a tension: the patriarchal dictates of Zoroastrianism, which limit women’s access to worship inside fire temples, sit uneasily with a queer man endeared to his matriarchal relations. A questioning, as well as reflection on memories and the senses, similarly features in Areez’s hybrid experimental prose, which takes the form of a synthesis of non-fiction and poetic writing. Prose offers an equally captivating medium for hybridity, in which, for example, Aunt Dolly can appear allegorically as the mythic simurgh. Areez’s writings display an equal ability to communicate sensual, phenomenological experiences with words alongside works rendered in thread, cloth and colour. Like faithful birds, memories and ideas — from the deeply personal to the collective.

– Zara Stanhope

. . .

The impulse to wander the bylanes of history, linger in painful reveries, and recycle trauma from the past is quintessentially queer. By dwelling on his experience of exile and the loss of connection to one’s ancestral land, Katki seeks to expand the archive of anxieties inherited from his migrant parents. As a queer Parsi who migrated from Mumbai to Aotearoa at an early age, Katki is deeply aware of the labour of integration that a migrant is expected to perform to fit in better. Echoing Sarah Ahmed’s notion of privilege as an energy-saving device, Katki’s oeuvre instantiates the constant friction that one has to overcome as well as the myriad ‘straightenings’ imposed on those who fall outside the pale of privilege. The exacting demands made by the dominant culture on a body that is deemed foreign to it often fold in the body a sense of inferiority, fear, and self-doubt even when one has acquired a certain mastery over that culture.

– Adwait Singh

. . .

Although best known for his finely detailed, gestural textile works, it is the knowledge, histories and questions layered behind the stitches that render Areez Katki’s pieces not merely distinctive, but profound. His practice brings to mind the words of Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who has warned against the “danger of a single story”.

Through his intertwined textile and writing practices, Katki tells tales of immense complexity, moving deftly across his chosen mediums to explore multi-threaded histories and identities, revealing the tangled complexity where each strand intersects with another to prove that a single story is not only dangerous, but impossible. [...] Steeped in so many stories, crafted with memory and lore, Katki’s artworks are unique, completely unlike anything else being produced today.

– Lucinda Bennett

. . .

In 2022 Katki was invited to present a body of work for the 7th edition of Colomboscope, ‘Language is Migrant’ curated by Anushka Rajendran (Colombo, SL); and a survey of their practice was exhibited at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery with Khadim Ali, in ‘There Is No Other Home But This’ curated by Zara Stanhope (Ngāmotu New Plymouth, NZ). In 2023 Katki was the Sarjeant Gallery’s Tylee Cottage artist in residence (Whanganui, NZ). In 2024 Katki presented their second a solo exhibition in India, ‘As This Chin Melts on Your Knee’ at Tarq Gallery (Mumbai, IN); and was invited to present a significant new body of work, ‘The Rhapsode’s Tools Will Build the Rhapsode’s House’ by the ECC during the 60th Biennale di Arte (Venice, IT). Katki was appointed the Aotearoa NZ visual artist in residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien for a twelve-month period over 2024–2025, where they developed and presented a draft of their experimental novel, synthesised into the first part an exhibition trilogy, 'How to puncture the sky and hear the stones sing' (Berlin, DE). In 2025 Katki was also commissioned to develop a spatial installation as part of 'BINDUNG | Communion: The Daughters' Trilogy: Chapter II', an exhibition trilogy curated by Nina Tabassomi at TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol (Innsbruck, AT).