Shaheer Zazai is a Toronto-based Afghan-Canadian artist with a current studio practice both in painting and digital media. His practice focuses on exploring and attempting to investigate the development of cultural identity in the present geopolitical climate and diaspora.

Through his current painting practice Zazai is exploring the process of instantaneous painting and the translation of raw ideas into a visual narration of the act. It is as though approaching painting like it is a quick sketch of the thought of the moment. This series will serve as means to self-exploration and understanding cultural identity away from ones own homeland.

Simultaneously Zazai's digital work is an exploration into understanding the effects of displacement, hybridization and appropriation as a result of technological advances. The digital works revolves around Microsoft Word and imagery drawn from traditional Afghan carpets. Through mimicking carpet-making methods, he creates his own designs in Microsoft Word, where every knot of a carpet is translated into a typed character. These Microsoft Word carpets serve as homage to the beauty of culture and tradition that has fallen victim to many turbulent political turmoil.

Solo Exhibition