Adeela Suleman’s solo exhibition, My Kingdom for a Horse!, opens at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, from 4pm to 7pm. The exhibition brings together a new body of work centred on the horse as a powerful figure of mythology, history, memory and transformation.
Across cultures and centuries, the horse has exceeded its function as a beast of burden to become a vessel for the soul, memory, and the passage between the earthly and the divine. In My Kingdom for a Horse!, Suleman explores the moment at which these associations converge — when the rider falls away and the animal remains, still charged with everything it once carried, but now unclaimed.
To remove the rider is, in Suleman’s words, to divest the form of ambition, command and conquest. What remains is a sense of release: sovereignty relinquished rather than lost. The horse becomes both a historical and mythical presence, carrying traces of the narratives and power structures that have long surrounded it.
The work draws upon a rich lineage of sacred, mythic and historical steeds, from the Ashvamedha and Bucephalus to Buraq, Pegasus, Rakhsh and Zuljanah. These figures have occupied vastly different cultural and religious contexts, yet share an enduring association with power, transcendence, movement and the passage between worlds.
Suleman’s engagement with the horse also extends her longstanding interest in history, violence, power and memory. By removing the human figure from the equation, she shifts attention towards the animal itself — its physical presence and the histories projected onto it — creating a space where the horse can exist beyond its traditional role as a vehicle for human ambition.
An alumna of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and the University of Karachi, Adeela Suleman served as Head of the Fine Art Department at IVS for more than a decade. Her practice has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major art centres, galleries, museums, biennials and art fairs internationally, and her work forms part of public and private collections around the world.Suleman is a founding member and director of Odd Bird Art, Singapore, SAGA, Karachi, and Vasl Artists’ Association, Karachi. Her monograph Not Everyone’s Heaven, published by SKIRA, was followed by Art, Violence and the State in the Killing Fields of Karachi, further documenting her sustained engagement with art, history and the politics of violence.
Based in Karachi, where she lives and works, Suleman continues to develop a practice that brings together historical references, contemporary concerns and material experimentation.My Kingdom for a Horse! opens on Tuesday, October 6, at Canvas Gallery and remains on view until Thursday, October 15, 2026.