The Language of a Chair
by Zahra Jewanjee
Opening July 26th
Zuban-e-Kursi
ARTIST BIO
Zahra Jewanjee (B. Pakistan 1983) is an artist and educator living and working in the UAE. She received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Pakistan, and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, USA. Zahra was awarded the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship and Full Scholarship, Abu Dhabi in 2016. In 2024 she was a recipient of The Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Residency Unlimited in New York, and the Djerassi Artist Residency in California. Other residencies include Iowa Lake Side Laboratory, USA, Konvent Residencia, Spain, Campus Art Dubai Residency, UAE, and DAAR Residency, Bangladesh. Zahra exhibits nationally and internationally, and her work was featured in ‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ for the Venice Architecture Biennale – US Pavilion (2018), RISD NatureLab, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, MAS Context Chicago, Guernica Magazine, and TakeonArt among other publications. She is a founder of ‘SoZa Collective’ and works as an Adjunct Professor at the American University in Dubai, UAE. Oscillating between painting, sculpture, and photography, her multidisciplinary practice draws from Nature and explores belonging and agency through a fictive chair language, "Zuban-e-Kursi," creating visually chaotic yet logical narratives that mirror human behaviours and relationships in an attempt to break free from habitual silos and connect with the cosmos, offering a form of visual poetry and an anthropological response.
show STATEMENT
The solo show is a myriad of curiosities, where nature, science, and Sufism converge in a visual tapestry of organized chaos.
Jewanjee draws inspiration from these diverse sources to develop her unique language, Zuban-e-Kusri (the language of a chair). Utilizing chair parts as symbols, she crafts a visual apparatus mimicking the intricate choreography of collective behaviours observed in humans, birds, and even microbes. These movements may seem chaotic from a distance, but beneath the surface lies an invisible order.
"I am captivated by the dynamics of group formation," Jewanjee explains, "where individuals seek protection and belonging. What connects us can also disconnect, resulting in othering. My work captures this interplay between structure and spontaneity."
Her paintings tease a hidden code, with birds often becoming protagonists leading out of metaphorical containers, both real and cerebral, offering visual poetry and an anthropological response.
Jewanjee’s process embodies contextual relationships within a larger framework, arriving at specific vocabulary and material choices. By toying with Abstract Figuration and deploying successive layers of thinly poured marks, which she calls settlers, she reflects on individual and collective behaviours. Her work highlights human fragility and liberation from ideological constraints, connecting us to the cosmos.
