Negar Ahkami was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Iranian immigrant parents in 1971, and raised in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. She attended The Art Students League of NY since age 10 through her teen years. She graduated from Columbia University magna cum laude. She became a lawyer in her 20s to appease her family, and continued to paint and exhibit her work, including an exhibition of Iranian female artists in NY curated by Nicky Nodjoumi and Nahid Hagigat in 1999. In September of 2001, she left her lawyer position at The Museum of Modern Art, to focus on her art. She attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2004, and received an MFA in Fine Arts from School of Visual Arts in NY (2006).
Ahkami participated in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency and Governor’s Island residency, and Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington’s Longterm Artist Residency in Arlington, VA. She has had solo exhibitions at MoCA Arlington, Marymount University, Leila Heller Gallery (NY), and LMAK Projects (Brooklyn). Her work has been in group exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of Art, Rutgers University, the Walters Art Museum, Princeton University, Kravets Wehby Gallery, and Rossi and Rossi Gallery (Hong Kong). In 2023, she participated in an artist exchange and exhibition in Uzbekistan as part of the Art In Embassies program of the State Department. Ahkami’s work is represented in the collections of The New Britain Museum of American Art, Depaul University Art Museum, Wellington Management Company, the Mohammad Afkhami Collection, and the Farjam Collection (Dubai, UAE).
Ahkami is currently based in Arlington, VA and has art studios in Arlington and in Brooklyn, NY.