About

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.
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.
CV

HONORS
- Malamegi Lab 18 Research Grant 
  Italy - 2021
WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, India 
- Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh
- X Museum, Beijing  
- CC Foundation, Shanghai
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

- "Waking Dream," Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2024

- "Winter Light," The Cabin LA, Los Angeles, USA - 2024
- "Cries and Whispers," Cromwell Place, London, UK - 2023
- "Bazeecha-e-Atfal (A Playground)," Scott Miller Projects, Birmingham, USA - 2022

- "Being and Becoming," Tanzara Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan - 2022

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

- Frieze London 2024, Night Gallery, London, UK - 2024
- Frieze London 2024, Vadehra Art Gallery, London, UK - 2024
- Delhi Contemporary Art Week 2024, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2024
- People, Places, Things, Vadehra Art Gallery, India - 2024
- Art Basel, Vadehra Art Gallery, Hong Kong - 2024
- Art Dubai, Vadehra Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE - 2024 
- India Art Fair, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2024
- Art Mumbai 2023, Vadehra Art Gallery, Mumbai, India - 2023 
- Frieze London 2023, Vadehra Art Gallery, London, UK - 2023 
- Delhi Contemporary Art Week 2023, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2023 
- Platform x David Zwirner, New York, USA - 2023

- NOMAD, Full Circle Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan - 2021 

- Anna Molka Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan - 2021

- Malamegi Lab 18, Venice, Italy - 2021
PUBLICATIONS
- "Nomadic Issues", Dawn. Dec 2021
- "Vol 5", The Aleph Review. 2021
- "Issue 58", Periphery Journal of Drake University. June 2021

- "Issue 08", Al Tiba9 Contemporary Magazine. May 2021
- "Venezia Today", Italy. May 2021

- "Issue 12, Beyond Words", International Literary Magazine. Feb 2021

- “A Season in Isolation", Gulf Stream Magazine. Dec 2020
- "Gasher Journal", Kerutis, Whitney. Dec 2020
-  “String Magazine", Side Street View. Nov 2020

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