Nadia Alkhun has always been an artist. The art itself has just taken many different forms.
Fifteen years after earning a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and genetic engineering in her native Jordan, Alkhun received her degree in fine arts at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2022.
Since first opening her own gallery in a former coach house in Milwaukee’s Lower East Side the following year, Alkun relocated to her spacious, Greenfield, Wisconsin, storefront in 2024—where it has quickly fostered a space where fine art, science, and Islamic identity seamlessly coexist.
For the past month, for example, NADIANA Art Gallery has been immersed in the rhythms of Ramadan: the gallery is currently showcasing its annual exhibition on Islamic-inspired art, a tradition that can just as easily encompass impossibly-nested geometry and golden calligraphy as it can gaggles of children painting a mosque at sunset.
The gallery will host their Eid Al-Fitr Bazaar on March 19.
“There are not many opportunities here to celebrate these holidays. It’s an opportunity to give them the vibes of Islamic celebration,” Alkhun says.
The gallery’s latest venue—next door to both a Yemeni coffeeshop, and a tour agency for Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages—have quickly rendered it a hub for Wisconsin Muslims. “It brings them all together.”
A Space for Creativity & Care
Local pastel and watercolor artist Julia Pagenkopf first met Alkhun in 2024. She quickly became enamored with not just the inviting space—where her work would later hang in exhibits like “Petals and Perspectives”—but its equally welcoming proprietor.
Alkhun’s own artwork, meanwhile, inspires similar reactions.
“It’s really, really gorgeous,” Pagenkopf says of Alkhun’s creations: vivid, almost explosive evocations of boisterous cell walls, or three-dimensional, technicolor sculptures of organic, intertwined ribbons. “Abstract, beautiful, biomorphic.”
The gallery’s first-ever member appreciation dinner in January, highlighted this natural fusion of fine art and hard science: Alkhun’s husband, neurologist and photographer Ahmed Obeidat, regaled members with a lecture on the growing field of neuroaesthetics, which investigates the neural basis for artistic creation, contemplation, and appreciation.
“I think science and art are complementary to each other, and can never be separated,” Alkhun says. “The creativity of a human mind doesn’t come from nothing.”
In line with her passion for biology, Alkhun also strives to make space and include artists with chronic illnesses. Just recently, the gallery partnered with non-profit Danceworks MKE, to host art workshops for their Arts for Multiple Sclerosis program.
Shaped by Generosity
The art gallery’s name itself also hints at the kind of warm, inviting spirit that Alkhun seeks to perpetuate: its original punctuation, NAdiaNA, served as a subtle homage to her late mother, Ana, who Alkhun credits as her first supporter. These embedded initials also double as a reference to Alkhun’s husband, Ahmed, who she praises for his unwavering love and support.
Pagenkopf, for one, is incredibly grateful to have found such a welcoming institution in such exhausting times.
“I really appreciate Nadia’s generosity. She’s generous with her time and her comments about your art. She’s generous with the quality of her receptions and the food she provides, which, I have to say, is always wonderful,” she says.
“I find Nadia somewhat courageous in creating a gallery, a lot of which is devoted to Muslim culture,” says Pagenkopf. “I think in this country, at this time, it takes courage to do that.” But more than courage, she cherishes the community.