A common sight in the UAE is to see groups of South Asian men resting – lounging, picnicking, or just hanging out – on grassy verges and shaded pavements, particularly towards the end of the workday or on their one day off. This duo show at Gallery Isabelle brings together two artists to consider the relationships between rest and public space by focusing on these low-income workers.
Hung in a long line, Divecha’s small drawings on handmade paper depict these men as sketchy inverted silhouettes against swathes of black ink: a circle for a head, some lines for limbs (e.g. Resting Bodies, [Island No.5], ). Focusing on their form and stripped of any racialized representation, the images have a beautiful, graceful quality.
Kazem takes on a rather more ethnographic approach, with a suite of large paintings in styles ranging from illustration to something almost impressionistic – the effect is a little AI art style selector – that feel remarkably unsensational in the suspicious returned gazes they faithfully capture (all Window, 2023).