Mohammed Kazem

Acrylic on Scratched Paper

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Mohammed Kazem, Acrylic on Scratched Paper, 2013, Pink ink on scratched paper, 30.48 x 22.86 cm (each), Art Jameel Collection. Photograph courtesy of the artist and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde.

Artwork Details

Artist

Mohammed Kazem

Title

Acrylic on Scratched Paper

Date

2013

Medium

Pink ink of scratched paper

Dimensions

30.48 x 22.86 cm (each)

Credit Line

Art Jameel Collection

Work Description

In the mid-1990s while experimenting with impasto painting, Mohammed Kazem began scratching paper with the edge of a pair of scissors, lifting the surface of the paper and creating monochrome braille-like networks of bumps, depressions and reliefs. This process relates back to his early interest in music, he played the oud before he began to paint, and through his conversations with Hassan Sharif, began to listen to the experimental works of John Cage and Philip Glass. Like a visual phonograph shaped around a simple silhouette, Kazem senses what is unmeasurable, sometimes even unseeable, and transfigures it into a visual work. He refers to the ‘sound’ of the object: a multiplicity of interwoven, transient phenomena, from the movement of light across the surface of the object, to the materiality of the paper as it peels. Kazem is interested in capturing the movement of his hand as it glides across the paper with each scratch, producing a different sound depending on the pressure of the hand against the paper and the direction of the scratches against the paper. 

Acrylic on Scratched Paper is from this ongoing body of work, the artist cutting into broad sheets of paper that are overlaid with a single colour. The texture of the scratched paper absorbs that colour, suggesting the presence of two colours, shades or tones, and broader marks also appear. The scratched lines do not follow a linear pattern, but come at all angles, in quite natural, random formations, but are of a similar length and depth.

Artist Biography

Mohammed Kazem (b.1969, Dubai, United Arab Emirates) lives and works in Dubai

Mohammed Kazem has developed an artistic practice that encompasses video, photography and performance to find new ways of apprehending his environment and experiences. The foundations of his work are informed by his training as a musician, and Kazem is deeply engaged with developing processes that can render transient phenomena, such as sound and light, in tangible terms. Acknowledged as one of the ‘Five’, an informal group of artists at the vanguard of conceptual and interdisciplinary art practice in the UAE, Kazem has an MFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2012) and is also active as a curator, co-curating the 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007). In addition to representing the UAE at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013), he has exhibited prolifically in the UAE and notable international participations include the Lyon Biennale (2022), Yinchuan Biennale and Honolulu Biennial (both 2016), Singapore Biennial (2006), Asian Art Biennial, Dhaka (2002) and Havana Biennial (2000). His works are held in the collections of the British Museum; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and New York; Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art; and the Koç Foundation, Istanbul among others.

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