Untitled (Scissors)
Hussain Sharif
Salwa Zeidan Gallery
2020
collage and ink on paper
60 x 42cm
Hussain Sharif revels in textures and surfaces to create his collage works. He combines newspaper and magazine clippings with his own ink drawings to create tension that pushes at the limits of definition. Although often abstract, his collages are layered compositions that use old material – found objects, second hand images and partial sketches – to create newness. The conceptual metaphor in Sharif’s practice mirrors the rapid urbanisation and modernisation of his home country, the United Arab Emirates, which underwent such a complete and transformational change in a few short decades, that many who lived through it felt that their present was defined by stitching together parts of the past and the future.
Hussain Sharif was born in 1961 in Dubai, UAE. He studied at the High Institute of Kuwait and graduated with a degree in theatre design in 1986. He then took on the post of Head designer at Sharjah TV and began exhibiting his artworks in the UAE. Sharif founded the Emirates Fine Art Society in Sharjah along with his late brother, Hassan Sharif, who was a pioneer in Emirati contemporary art. During the course of his career, he has taken part in over 40 solo and collective shows and fairs in the UAE, Russia, Holland, France, Egypt and Germany.