Pakistani artist Zara Mahmood explores and commands stillness as well as heightened attention to shifting light and temporality in our daily lives for her first institutional solo exhibition in the United Arab Emirates.
The Sharjah-based Maraya Art Centre’s exhibition Towards Time, organized by Cima Azzam, represents a change in direction for the Dubai-based artist’s work. This body of work deviates subtly but significantly from Mahmood’s well-established foundation in traditional printmaking, drawing, and painting by gliding into the more contemporary and technological domains of photo transfers, video, and digital prints on non-traditional materials.
The exhibition is housed in a sizable, light-filled space on the center’s second floor that has recently undergone renovations. Natural light from the windows softens the room’s white walls and floors. It’s the perfect setting for Mahmood’s sparse, minimalist artworks, which are put on purpose and allow for the easier discovery of visual nuances.
A low-volume video of the artist, featuring discussions of her practice interspersed with scenes from her studio, plays as soon as you enter. This serves as a launching point to contextualize what comes next.
The concept of temporality, and more specifically, tempo, is inherent in Mahmood’s visual practice and is emphasized in the titles of pieces like Frequencies (2020) and Sail into Night (a Dubai band she plays piano and harmonium for).
The desire to spend time viewing Sharjah’s summer sun’s etherealness grows more substantial as one departs Towards Time. Mahmood’s exhibition encapsulates a significant turning point in the artist’s thinking and career, but it also serves as a call to viewers to embrace their own innate urges for more stillness and slowness — the same impulse that draws us to the meditative beauty of beach photos and golden hour selfies, those fleeting moments that cause us to pause.
In essence, Towards Time encourages us to pay closer attention to the commonplace, something as consistent and unremarkable as the sun shining through our windows.