Lot 64: Blame

Mohammad Zeeshan (b. 1980)
Blame
signed in Urdu (lower right); signed (on the reverse)
gouache on wasli
20½ x 13 in. (52.1 x 33 cm.)
Painted in 2007

Paris, Moulin De L'Est, From Lahore To Montmartre, 2007
Antibes, Back From Future, 2007

Salima Hashmi, exhibition catalogue, From Lahore To Montmartre - Miniature Contemporaines du Pakistan, Paris, 2007

Acquired by present owner from Moulin De L'Est in Paris.

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Muhammad Zeeshan's works are commentaries on the Afghan wars, Islamphobic propaganda post 9/11, suppression and censorship. To this end Zeeshan has utilised the imagery of guns, daggers, vultures and rodents. Guns juxtaposed with bananas are intended to convey the corruption of young disaffected innocent minds driven to violence. Zeeshan associates the world's politicians with vultures and scavengers feeding off the less privileged. In the exhibition catalogue From Lahore to Montmartre, Contemporary Miniatures from Pakistan, Paris, 2007, Zeeshan recounts how as a young man he worked in a cinema house which showed pornographic movies. In an attempt to put his talent to use he took up the role of painting over the images that were deemed too risqué and would offend sensibilities.
Zeeshan's latest series of works depicts in exquisite detail an almost tactile beauty into the stark and highly sexualized imagery of the rat.