Location: Pakistan
Shah Numair Ahmed Abbasi lives and works in Karachi. He completed his BFA with a distinction from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in 2014 where he specialised in sculpture and photography. Havin shown in his home country as well as internationally, his practice draws on popular culture, anecdotes and colloquialisms to stage personal and social narratives. His work attempts to challenge the politics behind how gender is socially constructed and performed. The figure of the male nude is a recurring theme, often presented in ways that undermine or question idealised masculine virtues.
Few of the available works that holistically stage a personal or social discourse – narratives often arisen from vernacular, colloquial expressions, and anecdotes I have experienced or witnessed - to potentially percolate the binary and the accepted heteronormativity. They further critique the politics behind social gender constructs while attempting to burst the myopic perception towards the canon of male nudes.
2017
Mixed media on canvas, and digital print on Montval paper
91 x 168 cm, and 12x8.4 cm
In a predominantly homophobic society, there seems to prevail an unsaid tolerance towards physical intimacy between the same sex – it is rarely interpreted as romantic. Two men can walk hand-in-hand in public without fear of it being considered amorous; which would be the case if a heterosexual couple were to do the same. There is thus this space which proves to be conducive to the local LGBT community, especially to gay men, to freely exercise their lifestyle and desire – all while maintaining low visibility and consequently without raising speculation. Only discussing queer life is taboo which ironically oft facilitates it, as does deeply entrenched patriarchy that the society struggles to detach its impetus from.
2017
Mixed media and digital print on Montval paper
152 x 102 cm
In a predominantly homophobic society, there seems to prevail an unsaid tolerance towards physical intimacy between the same sex which provides space which that is conducive to the local LGBT community, especially to gay men, who freely exercise their lifestyle and desire – all while maintaining low visibility and consequently without raising speculation
“I lay on the bed waiting for his heart”
2017
Mixed media on Montval paper
102 x 165 cm
In a predominantly homophobic society, there seems to prevail an unsaid tolerance towards physical intimacy between the same sex which provides space which that is conducive to the local LGBT community, especially to gay men, who freely exercise their lifestyle and desire – all while maintaining low visibility and consequently without raising speculation.
“Jadu nagri se aya hai koi jadugar”
2017
Mixed media on canvas
183 x 107 cm
The piece inspects the performative nature of queer men in public spaces, propelled by a society that refrains from acknowledging their existence.
2016
Mixed media on paper
27 x 18 cm
A comment on the virility of men through an inspection of their scattered body hair.
2017
Mixed media on canvas
168 x 91
A humor ridden piece that stems from a viral sms joke that collates bald men jumping to boiling eggs
“The Unfamiliar Romance”
“Get this on the front page!”
“Just let your hair down”
“Anday wala burger I”
