Cape Town Art Fair: Souad Abdelrassoul, Sujay Shah

A dual presentation of Souad Abdelrassoul and Sujay Shah

Souad Abdelrassoul and Sujay Shah approach Listen as a framework for engaging with histories that are often muted yet remain powerfully resonant in the present.

Abdelrassoul's practice, spanning drawing, painting, and sculpture, foregrounds the feminine and the emotional, informed by her lived experience within Arabic patriarchal systems. Drawing on familiar myths and legends, she paints figures that question the roles of women in society and cultural history, in ways that are both disruptive and thought-provoking. Her works trace the persistence of voices that have long been marginalised, opening space for recognition and empathy. 

Shah's practice reflects on intertwined cultural ideologies, myths, and histories, and considers how we navigate the enduring legacies of colonialism in Kenya. In his fictitious dioramas and still lifes, acts of brutality sit alongside luxury items such as Victorian objects, silverware and candelabras, challenging notions of what it means to be 'civilised.' At the same time, Shah reflects on inherited traumas, conjuring otherworldly figures that give form to the lingering presence of troubled pasts.

Seen together, their practices position listening as a form of reckoning, with silence, with memory, and with the intergenerational echoes that continue to shape how we understand ourselves and one another.

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