Salem AlShamsi Reflects on Decoding, His First Solo Exhibition at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery

By NiccolòAcram Cappelletto

Published on June 14th, 2023

Surrounded by a warm round of success, Salem Alshamsi recently opened his solo exhibition Decoding, curated by Mojgan Endjavi-Barbé at Zidoun & Bossuyt – a Luxembourg-based gallery which recently opened its Dubai outpost on Jumeirah Beach Road. A practicing lawyer as well as a law professor at Sorbonne-Abu Dhabi, Alshamsi returned to the UAE in 2018 after seventeen years abroad pursuing his studies and professional career. For the past few years, he started to actively practice his art. After exhibiting at the Spanish Pavilion of Dubai Expo, Decoding is Alshamsi’s first solo exhibition at a white cube gallery – and certainly not his last.

Focusing on his geometric paintings and newly-made sculptures, the exhibition gives an overview of the inner world of Alshamsi through primary colors. With precision and abstraction, Decoding shapes an exploration of the inner self through painting, as you will read in the following interview.

1. Salem AlShamsi, Decoding, 2023. Installation view at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery, Dubai. Courtesy of Zidoun & Bossuyt.

NiccolòAcram Cappelletto: Thank you for sitting down with Global Art Daily. I personally haven’t seen your work in-person, but from the pictures of the exhibition, your paintings caught my eye for their superb execution. Your exhibition Decoding is still open until the 24th, how are you feeling about it?

Salem AlShamsi: The main reason why I’m making art is because I grew very passionate about it. I was born in the UAE and I lived for about seventeen years and then I moved abroad for around another seventeen years. On my way back here, I accumulated so many emotions from the 1990s and early 2000s about life events, some good and some bad and I decided to do something about them. Art became a perfect medium for me to channel these feelings in a good way. It has helped me to disconnect myself from it and have it somewhere in front of me.

N.A.C.: Did you start making art when you came back to the UAE or were you also practicing previously? How did you develop your technique since you are self-taught?

S.A: I have been painting but I never took it really seriously until now. I paint almost everyday but this is all new to me, so I take any opportunity to learn from anyone. When I started to think about transitioning to the creative world, I attended a very short course in fashion at Central Saint Martins in London because I thought that that was my passion. However, during the fashion course I had only one hour of fashion illustration in which I really enjoyed using colors and the brush or taking the right paper on the right canvas. I wanted to take it further but I did not enjoy the other parts of it like the sewing machine or pattern cutting. Afterwards I started experimenting at home and if you see the artworks, they consist of basic shapes and colors, primary and secondary ones. I wanted to build connections with these colors and shapes to understand them and my feelings towards them. From there, I used a very limited palette or black and white because I felt that I built these connections with colors.

2. Salem AlShamsi, Decoding, 2023. Installation view at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery, Dubai. Courtesy of Zidoun & Bossuyt.

N.A.C.: That sounds great. I was especially struck by the preciseness of the technique. That must be difficult to have mastered on your own.

S.A.: In fact, I use a ruler all the time to paint and precision is built into my work. The pieces are often very mathematical and this aspect of my practice comes from the discipline in my job as a lawyer. In this profession, we are not allowed to make any mistakes – we would lose the contract or financial gains otherwise – so my brain is trained not to make mistakes. Then this was translated into art where I don't allow myself to make mathematical or technical mistakes. Everything has to be perfect as you see in this exhibition; yet, I am trying to move beyond this perfectionism. I’m starting to be more into free work and incorporate different styles. For this show, the curator didn't show those new artworks because we wanted to focus on geometry with these crisp and sharp works.

3. Salem AlShamsi, Decoding, 2023. Opening day at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery, Dubai. Courtesy of the artist.

N.A.C.: So, how does it feel to have a solo exhibition and show your works in the UAE after a long time spent abroad?

S.A.: I did two exhibitions before this one but neither were commercial. One was at Sorbonne-Abu Dhabi and it was a more educational one because I talked about the event to my students as part of their class. It was a piano session and my art was secondary to the main event. I had a second show at the Spanish Pavilion in EXPO Dubai and this was about celebrating individuality. I showed my work and I talked about it from that angle: how to express yourself and be genuine. Decoding is more interesting for me because it is my first commercial exhibition, with the audience people coming only for you. We can offer people to buy and this is all very new to me. Considering that this is a very prestigious international gallery with branches here in Dubai, in Luxembourg, in France, and soon in the U.S., doing a solo exhibition here was intimidating at first. I told myself that if my paintings did not sell – as a thank to the gallery, I would have donated few paintings. This is what I told my curator. But then, the good news is that I almost sold out the day of the opening. Almost all paintings and a few sculptures were taken already in the first four hours. I honestly didn't expect this and I thought it would have been the opposite. I felt really overwhelmed and beautifully surprised by how people interacted with the paintings. It is so flattering to see someone who works hard to make their money but thinks of using it for art because they really enjoy your work. I saw some big collectors but also I was so happy that young collectors were there. I was enthusiastic.

I felt really overwhelmed and beautifully surprised by how people interacted with the paintings.

N.A.C.: Did you happen to know some of these collectors or were they all new to you?

S.A.: It was a mix. Some friends actually wanted to buy my art already from the studio. Other people like bigger collectors, official representatives, and people from the government came and liked the artworks. My family also bought one which was really flattering. I was not interested in the revenue but in the gesture and that made me really happy.

4. Salem AlShamsi, Double Standard, 2021. Acrylic and ink on canvas. 90 x 60cm. Courtesy of the artist.

N.A.C.: It was a great reaction regardless of the financial aspect. I want to ask you about a couple of artworks that have some sort of keffiyeh motif that falls down into pieces.

S.A.: There is the black and white and that is a very interesting piece, actually one of my favorites. There is a fashion element into it and it includes a print of what men wear in the Arab World on their head. To me, the head symbolizes intellect and the mentality. Because this painting is about the 1990s, I put the black and white dots because they symbolize the double standard in the mentality of those years, like everything is segregated with a standard for men, another for women; one for foreigners and one for non-foreigners, and so on. Everything feels like it has two different set of rules, applying to two categories, and I am not comfortable with that. We shouldn't put so many rules for people on the way they think and the way they live their life. That is why [the painting] falls apart and it creates something more organic.

Everything feels like it has two different set of rules, applying to two categories, and I am not comfortable with that. We shouldn't put so many rules for people on the way they think and the way they live their life. That is why [the painting] falls apart and it creates something more organic.

5. Salem AlShamsi, Break-up, 2021. Acrylic and ink on canvas. 100 x 100cm. Courtesy of the artist.

N.A.C.: It looks really incredible. This other one with colors dissolving into waves-like patterns on the bottom also caught my eye. Were they done at a similar time? Do you have patterns that come back to you?

S.A.: This was part of the same series, the black and white is actually a study for this one. I’m very interested in repetition in art and whether it is the repetition within a single painting – repeating the same motif or pattern – or several paintings that look like each other. I find painting a meditative process, and every version has a different feeling. At the end, every artwork is slightly different. Once I finish one, I start with the next one.

Every artwork is slightly different. Once I finish one, I start with the next one.

N.A.C.: So, how many of this series were in the show?

S.A.: I showed three in the exhibition, but I have more in my studio.

N.A.C.: Talking about different media, can you tell me more about the sculptures? I understand that it is something new for you.

S.A.: Sculptures are interesting because I do cubes and geometry. For the exhibition, I wanted to add a different dimension to the paintings. At the beginning, they were not for sale but more to complete the ambience in the exhibition. If you see them in the exhibition space, they have some sort of movement as they fall apart. That movement to me is important because it is connected with sharing one’s fragility and weakness as human being. In that process, one becomes stronger and starts not caring about fragility. You can take strength from people by sharing your weakness, this is why these cubes seem to fall apart.

You can take strength from people by sharing your weakness.

N.A.C.: And that is visible also in some of the paintings with a similar motif. I now pass to a question on the format of your paintings because I saw from the installation views these canvases with rainbow and black stripes, one bigger next to two smaller ones. Was there a reasoning behind this choice?

S.A.: I usually see my work in my brain before starting and then I execute the image. I’m not like other artists who can start using the brush on the canvas and see where it will take them. I wish I could do that but I'm not there yet – maybe I will never be. After I complete one image, a second image would come to me and this is how my series comes together, image after image after image. I cannot really explain it but this is my creative process. I created these paintings with these very clear lines, which actually stand for prison bars. Because of my legal training, I worked in prisons for a long while, mainly in France. The prisons are revealing places because they usually give you a quick understanding of any society. If the society from outside is organized, clean, and respected, then the prison will be organized in the same way; however, if the society is chaotic and there is inequality, or an overall lack of care for cleanliness, the same social problems will be present inside. I also made a sculpture about that and it has a long story about an author that I really like. Her name is Nawal al-Sa'dawi and she is an Egyptian who spent time in prison because she wrote a very daring theater piece. Then, she wrote this great book entitled Memoirs from the Women's Prison (1994). Hence, the presence of the prison is very dominant in my life through writing and also through art.

N.A.C.: Many thanks for sharing that. What role art plays in your everyday life? As you were saying before, it became a way to recollect but also elaborate on your past life events. How do you see this vision evolve in new works moving further?

S.A.: I mentioned that art became therapy and also a documentation of events of my life, before the exhibition. This exhibition feels like a confirmation of the beginning of my journey with art. I’m still at the very beginning, but this encourages me to move forward. I have the responsibility to be even more committed, to do more shows, and then to be more genuine and truthful towards my practice and art. I will definitely take it even more seriously when it comes to showing my art beyond my studio. Before this opportunity, I was disciplined, painting by myself in my studio, but now I want to push it to the world and be in communication with audiences outside. This is my new approach. I will need to be systematic and do shows every year and participate at events. For example, I will be participating at the Dubai Art Week, hopefully through my gallery. I submitted my work at a museum in Sharjah and I’m also participating in the upcoming Dubai Calligraphy Biennale. I also have a few commissions for private collectors. After Decoding, you could say I entered in a new dimension with my art.

This exhibition feels like a confirmation of the beginning of my journey with art.

N.A.C.: I am thinking about the role of calligraphy in your work. How did you grow a personal interest in it?

S.A.: I’m not trained in calligraphy but I love reading and writing generally. When it comes to painting, calligraphy was a starting point but what I do has nothing to do with calligraphy. I use it as a starting point for a painting. There are so many dots in my paintings. I’m actually writing only with dots, because I admire dots. The artist Paul Klee once said that a line is a continuous series of dots. Thus, I see dots as important in paintings as well as in calligraphy because they can change the meaning of something, the narrative. Dots can change the whole story. I add those because I want to show to people something different which is not the original writing that I'm sharing. Dots are so powerful and so tiny at the same time.

There are so many dots in my paintings. The artist Paul Klee once said that a line is a continuous series of dots. I see dots as important in paintings as well as in calligraphy because they can change the meaning of something, they can change the narrative.

N.A.C.: How will you be able to reconcile your practice with your other professional positions, such as being a professor and a practicing lawyer? Do you see all your activities as feeding and merging into one other?

S.A.: I personally plan that next year will be the last year I practice law as a lawyer. I will maintain my job as a teacher, which allows me to continue my art practice on the side. After all these years, I decided to be a full-time artist. It’s an important step. At some point in your life, you need to make a decision. I have been transitioning very slowly from law to art for the past five years and this feels like the right time to make the move. This transition will have a price which I’m willing to pay, because I will pursue my passion.

At some point in your life, you need to make a decision.

N.A.C.: Do you plan to continue practicing out of the UAE?

S.A.: I’m not really fixing myself in the UAE. I currently have my work contract here and I practice law, which is why I’m staying, but I also have a strong connection with France and I like the idea of not being settled in a single place. I want to have the possibility to live in different countries within the year and experience more situations. From next year onwards, I will probably come and go between here and there.

N.A.C.: I see! And why France specifically?

S.A.: I’m still very tied to Paris and France. l have my flat there, and many friends. I go there very often and I love the culture as well as the art scene. I’m now also open to new opportunities in other countries too, mostly to learn as much as I can, to expand my practice.

N.A.C.: Thank you very much Salem for this interview.

^{Decoding is on view at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery Dubai until June 24th.}
Salem Al Shamsi is a self-taught artist based in Abu Dhabi. Alongside being a full time lawyer Salem teaches Law at Sorbonne University. He pursued fashion at Central Saint Martin in London, where he discovered a deep interest in fashion illustration courses. Salem had two successful solo shows, in Sorbonne University and in the Spanish pavilion of Expo Dubai.
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NiccolòAcram Cappelletto is an editor at Global Art Daily, based in Venice, Italy. After completing his B.A. in Art History with specialisations in Political Science and Heritage Studies, he is conducting research on the connections between heritage and contemporary art in the context of postcolonial Italy.
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Salem AlShamsi Reflects on Decoding, His First Solo Exhibition at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery

I felt really overwhelmed and beautifully surprised by how people interacted with the paintings.

Everything feels like it has two different set of rules, applying to two categories, and I am not comfortable with that. We shouldn't put so many rules for people on the way they think and the way they live their life. That is why [the painting] falls apart and it creates something more organic.

Every artwork is slightly different. Once I finish one, I start with the next one.

You can take strength from people by sharing your weakness.

This exhibition feels like a confirmation of the beginning of my journey with art.

There are so many dots in my paintings. The artist Paul Klee once said that a line is a continuous series of dots. I see dots as important in paintings as well as in calligraphy because they can change the meaning of something, they can change the narrative.

At some point in your life, you need to make a decision.

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🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

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🔍 Legal

Salem AlShamsi Reflects on Decoding, His First Solo Exhibition at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery

I felt really overwhelmed and beautifully surprised by how people interacted with the paintings.

Everything feels like it has two different set of rules, applying to two categories, and I am not comfortable with that. We shouldn't put so many rules for people on the way they think and the way they live their life. That is why [the painting] falls apart and it creates something more organic.

Every artwork is slightly different. Once I finish one, I start with the next one.

You can take strength from people by sharing your weakness.

This exhibition feels like a confirmation of the beginning of my journey with art.

There are so many dots in my paintings. The artist Paul Klee once said that a line is a continuous series of dots. I see dots as important in paintings as well as in calligraphy because they can change the meaning of something, they can change the narrative.

At some point in your life, you need to make a decision.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 09 –– RUH/JED
Spring 2025

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer 2024

E-08++
Fall 2024

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
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Winter/Spring 2024

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
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