Despite being relatively unknown outside of her native country during her lifetime, Mohamedi's work has been the subject of remarkable revitalisation in international critical circles and has received popular acclaim over the last decade.
[5] After living briefly with her family in Bahrain, Mohamedi studied on a scholarship in Paris from 1961 to 1963, where she also worked at a printmaking atelier,[6] and on her return to India, joined the Bhulabhai Desai Institute for the Arts in Mumbai.
She also travelled abroad extensively, spending time in Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, the United States of America, Turkey, and Iran over the course of her life.
Not only was she influenced by the deserts, Islamic architecture, and Zen aesthetics that she was exposed to during her travels, but, as Susette Min notes, "Mohamedi was deeply and intensely aware, as indicated in her photographs and journal entries, of herself and her body moving in time.
"[16][17][18] Comparisons to Mohamedi's contemporaries are also frequent among reviews of her work; she is often associated with the American minimalism of the 1960s and 1970s and likened to artists such as Carl Andre, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Richard Tuttle, and John Cage.
[19] Although not as closely related to her work formally, Eva Hesse has also provided an illuminating comparative example to Mohamedi, especially in the charisma and sensitivity she exhibited as a teacher and mentor.
Not only was she able to gain exposure to Western artists and movements through her visits and study in Europe and in the United States, but she also became fascinated by Eastern traditions in her extensive travel in Asia.
The distinctly emotive aspect of her work has been cited as the influence of the lyricism of Sufi, while her combination of geometry and Arabesque line is often traced to an exposure to Islamic design, especially the architecture of Iran, Turkey, and Rajasthan.
[23] Although her work, especially the mature drawings of the 1970s and 1980s, is disciplined, even austere, it remains highly rhythmic – releasing the energy and movement of natural phenomena through line.
The grid that so often provides a spatial environment for her drawings is less a limitation than a framework for her compositions, allowing, in the words of Deepak Talwar, the “poetry within structure” to emerge.
Her friend and art historian Geeta Kapur has placed Mohamedi's photographs between the artistic and the real, stating that they create "an allegory of (dis)placement between the subject and the object.
[36][37] CSMVS Museum, The Vastness, Again & Again, Mumbai, India [38] Talwar Gallery, Pull with a Direction, New York, NY, US [39] The MET Breuer, Nasreen Mohamedi, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, US [40] Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Nasreen Mohamedi, Madrid, Spain [41] Tate, Nasreen Mohamedi, Liverpool, UK [42] Talwar Gallery, Becoming One, New York, NY, US [43] Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Nasreen Mohamedi: A Retrospective, New Delhi, India [44] Kunsthalle Basel, Nasreen Mohamedi, Basel, Switzerland [45] Milton Keynes Gallery, Nasreen Mohamedi, Milton Keynes, UK [46] Talwar Gallery, the grid, unplugged, New York, NY, US [47] Drawing Center, Lines among Lines, New York, NY, US [48] Talwar Gallery, Nasreen Mohamedi Photoworks, New York, NY, US [49] Jehangir Art Gallery, Nasreen in Retrospect, Bombay, India [50] Gallery 59, Nasreen Mohamedi, Bombay, India [51] Turner Contemporary, Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970, Margate, England [52] Whitechapel Gallery, Action / Gesture / Paint: a global story of women and abstraction 1940-70, London, England [53] Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France [54] Kunstalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany [55] Centre Pompidou, Elles font l’abstraction (Women in abstraction), Paris, France [56] Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum, Spain [57] Talwar Gallery, as the wind blows, New York, NY, US [58] Institute of Arab and Islamic Art (IAIA), Exhibition 1, New York, NY, US [59] Whitechapel Gallery, Adventures of the Black Square, London, UK [60] Fundação Casa França, artevida, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [61] Drawing Room, Abstract Drawing, London, UK [62] Hauser & Wirth, Lines, Zurich, Switzerland [63] Museum Abteiberg, Textiles: Open Letter, Mönchengladbach, Germany [64] Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists, Kansas City, MO [65] Queensland Art Gallery, Lightness & Gravity, Brisbane, Australia [66] Parasol Unit Foundation, Lines of Thought, London, UK [67] Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Crossings, New Delhi, India [68] The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), On Line, New York, NY, US [69] Stuart Shave/Modern Art, Actuality of an Idea, London, UK [70] Talwar Gallery, Excerpts from Diary Pages, New York, NY, US [71] Museum of Contemporary Art, WACK!