The title of the Indian action film, Deewaar (translated from the Hindi as “The Wall”) lends its name to an exhibition of paintings by Zaam Arif, whose love of cinema informs much of the work exhibited. The 1975 Bollywood masterpiece Deewaar tells the story of two brothers struggling to survive in the slums of Mumbai. Choosing different paths, one law-abiding and the other illicit, they find themselves divided by a wall of morality. Reflecting on these metaphorical walls dividing individuals and communities as well as the very real walls between territories and states, walls began to appear in Arif’s paintings. They show up literally — painted to cleave a composition in two — or sometimes implied in the introspective gaze of his figures who seem to stare past the viewer, troubled or lost in thought.
Painting in Sugar Land, Texas, after emigrating from Pakistan in 2020, Arif draws equally from real life and an imagined world in his work. The faces he depicts are borrowed from those close to him — his brother or a next-door neighbour — but their bodies, their style and their environments are fictitious. If one was to view his paintings as cinema, Arif is the writer, director and editor. His family and friends are the actors; enlisted for their abilities to complete an artist’s vision.
- Ben Broome
Curator
