Zaam Arif

Zaam ARIF is a Pakistani-American contemporary artist residing and working in Houston, Texas. Arif's work was exclusively featured in The New Yorker magazine in 2021, making him the youngest Pakistani artist to be published in the prestigious magazine. In the same year, his work was selected to be exhibited in the Malamegi Lab Award and was awarded the Malamegi Lab Research Grant in Italy. Arif has shown in both solo and group shows all over the world, where he has been critically acclaimed for showing new frontiers in the crossover of South Asian and Western culture, literature, and philosophy. Arif has had solo exhibitions at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India; The Cabin LA, Los Angeles, CA; Cromwell Place, London, United Kingdom; Scott Miller Projects, Birmingham, AL; and Tanzara Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan. The artist’s work is included in the public collections of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, India; Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh; X Museum, Beijing, China; and CC Foundation, Shanghai, China.

Zaam Arif's work is a reflection of an overture rich with philosophical and literary influences, over time evolving provocatively into a deep introspection of the human experience. Theories that derive from an otherwise complicated plethora of inquiries of existentialism are translated into powerful visuals with Arif's seamless craft and the synergy between characters and the environment they are painted in. Time and experience have allowed Zaam Arif to build a trajectory of visual energy, where man, place, and time are constructed gradually - as if to mirror the human experience - steady and slowly unfolding into the experience.

Zaam Arif's work reveals a silent prowess, taking inspiration from philosophy and literature, where he creates a language of his own, where his characters speak to their viewers - an abridgment of the nature of man, one which has been explored for centuries. The artist's work mirrors his curiosity about the complicated journey of discovery and the understanding of human existence. His practice, although evolving, keeps a constant resonance with the increasingly piquing yearning that every human has once they are plagued with an inquiry on contemplating existence. Each viewer is drawn to find themselves in Arif's works, as each posits a mirror to the self.