isma gul hasan is an illustrator living and working in Karachi, Pakistan. She completed her undergraduate degree in Visual Communication Design from Beaconhouse National University (BNU), and earned a MA in Illustration from University of the Arts London (UAL). Her practice explores inner worlds, belonging, and resistance to the matrix of oppression through a surreal, speculative lens, usually in the form of otherworldly plants, animals and gender-nonconforming beings in dreamlike landscapes. Combining various techniques, they work with digital illustration, drawing, painting, collage, printmaking and photography to create layered, mixed-media work, rooted conceptually in feminist thought and works of fiction. These inform their teaching interests at Habib University, where she focuses on disrupting hegemonies within the world of design and beyond, speculative storytelling and the relationship between word and image.

Her past projects span the realms of music, publishing, event design, civic education and protest art, including the internationally and critically acclaimed short film, Shehr-e-Tabassum. Her illustrations have appeared in the South Asian Avant-Garde (SAAG) anthology, The Funambulist and multiple issues of the Commonwealth Foundation’s literary magazine, adda.