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What you will find here

… are galleries of my paintings and installation work, posts about work I made or am making, and also (a lot of) blogs about other artists’ work that I find interesting and inspiring- mostly abstract painters like myself (if you’re looking for artists, scroll down, use the menu or the search bar).

While I am primarily a painter, I also create installation work. You can also use the menu to find images of paintings in progress, as well as some perspective on being an Artist with a big “A” after the historical narrative of painting’s progression has been shed.

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Studying what’s next

Having two shows this fall (group show at 311 Gallery and a solo at Golden Belt) has been amazing and validating, and work of course- first time showing both the cubes and remixes (which was a technical challenge). It also felt like closure. So in that context I’ve felt drawn to move the paintings in a new and slightly different direction. A practice based on formal investigation and experimentation probably should, right?

Having the cubes and the remixes up and together on walls with the paintings also made me want the latter to be even more distinct. So I’ve begun working through what I’ve wanted to “push” more from the prior work and thinking more about the edges of the cubes and how I incorporate line. Some early examples below, at least 3 of which are likely to be further developed (“yes” the two in the bottom left are an example of a spot where I’m far enough along to start responding to earlier studies with newer ones).

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Shaheer Zazai

BlackFlash Magazine’s December 2021 Issue Examines Islamic Art Traditions in Canada. In “Infinities,” guest-edited by curator and art historian Nadia Kurd, artists and writers discuss the influence of Islamic visual cultures in Canadian contemporary art. Shaheer gets a nice mention and an image.

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Mavis Pusey

In 1946, eighteen-year-old Mavis Pusey moved to New York from Jamaica to study at the Traphagen School of Fashion and, later, at the Art Students League. By 1969, she had worked in London as a patternmaker for Singer for nearly a decade. She then returned to New York to work at Robert Blackburn’s printmaking workshop—an important collaborative studio where artists were encouraged to experiment and freely exchange ideas.

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