Born in 1988 in Lalmonirhat, Rumana Rahman lives and works in Dhaka. Her practice is rooted in close observation of everyday life and the quiet narratives held inside ordinary objects and domestic spaces, working across printmaking, painting, watercolour, and mixed media since completing her BFA (2010) and MFA (2012) in Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka.
Still life sits at the centre of her work — fruits, utensils, vessels, and household materials examined not simply as subjects but as carriers of lived experience, of the often-unseen labour and resilience of women's lives. The kitchen recurs throughout her practice as a site of intimacy, nourishment, and invisible work, a lens for questions of belonging and agency. Wider concerns — urbanisation, migration, ecological change, and the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic — run through the same body of work.
She presented her first solo exhibition, Introspection, at Safiuddin Shilpalay, Dhaka, in 2023. Her honours include the Printmaking Media Best Award at the 23rd National Young Artists Art Exhibition, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (2022); 2nd Runner-up in the Empower Her: Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress Art Competition (2024); the Media Best Award at the Department of Printmaking's Annual Art Exhibition, University of Dhaka (2009); and Berger Young Painters Art Competition prizes in 2014, 2019, and 2020. In 2024 she took part in the CHITRASHAALA International Art Residency in Dharamshala, India, and in 2022 her work was shown as part of documenta fifteen through Britto Arts Trust Projects in Kassel, Germany.
