Subtle, controlled, in muted browns and blues that hover between the starkness of the quotidian and the haze of dreams, Zaam Arif’s compelling array of images – of mirrors within mirrors, darkened rooms, unmade beds, and the waves of the sea – evoke the crises of our troubled times. Anxieties, anomie, despair, alienation and solitude are incarnated in figures estranged from themselves: restlessly sleeping, examining their reflections, looking away from, or facing, a shimmering body of water, preparing for bleak days with cigarettes burning out between clenched fingers, seated in postures that capture a loneliness beyond the boundaries of casual companionship. Beyond the window there is a sense of a huge, uncaring city, but one that might offer tentative promises that invade the reveries of this band of strangers.
Excerpt from the essay Waking Dream by Aamer Hussein
