Soma Surovi Jannat

Soma Surovi Jannat (b. 1990) is a Bangladeshi artist whose practice spans drawing, painting, installation, and site-specific works. Her work emerges from a profound connection with nature, shaped through plein air sketching in villages across Bangladesh and India. Engaging closely with rural communities and their traditional relationships to the environment, she incorporates organic materials into her drawings to create layered, multi-dimensional spaces that invite viewer interaction.

Her recent body of work, inspired by the Sundarbans mangrove forests, addresses the global climate crisis while examining the intersection of ecological vulnerability and social inequality.

Soma’s work has received significant recognition. In 2023, she became the first Bangladeshi artist to participate in the Frere Hall South Asian Artist-in-Residence Programme at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. In March 2026, she is presenting her solo exhibition Climate, Culture, Care at the Ashmolean Museum. The exhibition marks the first solo presentation by a Bangladesh-based artist at a museum in the United Kingdom.

She was awarded the Samdani Art Award at the 2020 Dhaka Art Summit, which included a residency at the Delfina Foundation, London, and received the Young Artist Award from the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy the same year. Her work has been presented internationally, including at Colomboscope 2024 (Sri Lanka); Paint Your Own Village at Kora Contemporary Arts Center (Italy, 2023); the Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa, India, 2018); and the 7th Beijing International Art Biennale (China, 2017).