Abdus Salaam South African, b. 1989

Abdus Salaam (b. 1989, Cape Town; based in Cape Town) is a self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist whose work merges sculpture, painting, poetic gesture, photography, video, augmented reality, and music. Inspired by the landscapes and spiritual rhythms of his youth in South Africa, his artistic language is rooted in mystic abstraction, offering meditations on time, materiality, and cosmic longing. He works with natural and found elements—stone, quartz, sand, organic pigments—infusing each piece with ritual intention and metaphysical resonance. His practice emphasizes the sacred in the everyday, creating poetic environments that bridge the tangible and the immaterial.

Salaam is a keen investigator of time—both intimate and cosmic—and the connections between planetary, communal, and personal states. Contemporary in his mystic abstraction and surreal expression, his work often begins with his own poetry, calling forth a sense of peace and longing. He explores themes of oneness and vulnerability, using the material to access the immaterial, always working alone to embed intention in every fiber of the piece.

Selected Exhibitions

2025 – Tesouro, Spazio Capella Marchi, Italy

2025 – The Other Side of the Moon, Baró & O-Contemporary, Abu Dhabi

2024 – Insaan: Human Being, Nirox Foundation, South Africa

2023 – Finalist exhibition, Art Figura Sculpture Prize, Perla Castrum Museum, Schwarzenberg, Germany

2023 – Artist-in-residence, Institute for Public Architecture, Governor’s Island, New York

2022 – The Space Between, THK Gallery, Cape Town

2022 – Solo presentation, Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Tomorrows/Today)

2021–2023 – Group exhibitions at THK Gallery, Cape Town (Synaptic, Light + Space, Liminal States)

Collections

– Mohammed Afkhami Collection

– EKARD Collection