ABDUS SALAAM

This Cape Town poet and artist creates work and meaning across many mediums. He’s particularly known for his abstract “photographic light paintings”, which are made entirely in the dark.

Why abstract art? It allows for the expression of both inner and outer realities in subtle and profound ways. Abstraction allows me to draw connections with the familiar, like nature, and then invite to a reality that transcends the material.

How do your worlds of poetry and art intersect? For me, each work, each medium, every minuscule detail within an exhibition or body of work is as a line in a poem that is the central heart of a collection of works. No word out of place, no detail too small or too great. Much like poetry, my exhibitions begin with an empty gallery, a white canvas. I spend time in/with the space I am given, keeping in mind the poems and movements currently flowing in my life. Then, like the words of a poem being written,

I see the space as though gradually all of the works have been made and everything has been placed.

What inspires you? Everything, always. My motivation is to contribute to the beauty and peace of existence through art and poetry, and to invite to the highest values and forms of beauty in our world, both seen and unseen. abdussalaamart | abdussalaam.art

Cape Town’s THK gallery (thkgallery.com) is hosting an online exhibition of Abdus’s work, “Falls Of Abundance”, from 9 June, and another show, “Soft As Stone”, in January 2022. It will also exhibit his work at a number of international art fairs later this year.