Nasser Azam
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Nasser Azam (born 1963, Jhelum, Pakistan) is a leading British contemporary artist, living and working in London.
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[edit] Biography
Nasser Azam was born in Jhelum, Pakistan in 1963, and moved to London with his parents in 1970. Already by the time of his arrival in the UK he was conscious of his artistic vocation. He began painting seriously in 1980, and in the same year embarked on a business degree at the University of Birmingham. By 1983, his local reputation as an artist of considerable talent and vision had been established through a number of exhibitions in Birmingham and the West Midlands, including the The Barber Institute of Fine Arts. That year he also featured in a BBC documentary, which captured the precocity and rarity of his untrained yet prodigious talent. Yet just as his work and reputation were gathering momentum, Azam decided to divert his attentions away from his artistic vocation towards a career in finance. He did not paint again until 2006.
Azam's career in banking and financial services did not signify a rupture in his development as an artist, but rather saw his experience and consciousness of the world widen in a distinctive way. His work in finance took him all over the world, and in particular afforded the opportunity to travel extensively through Asia and the Pacific Rim.
During the course of these years, which included an extensive period of living and working in Japan, Azam's aesthetic and sense of the art world matured into a truly globalised perspective, which would be brought to bear on his practice when he returned to painting in 2006. The broad range of non-European cultures and forms of visual art that Azam experienced during these years ultimately contributed to the breadth and openness of vision that are characteristic of his recent work.
Azam returned to painting in early 2006 and has since then both re-imagined the visual and thematic motifs of his youth, and sought to extend the frontiers of his professional practice. He became Artist-in-Residence at the County Hall Gallery in 2007, mounting a major exhibition of early and recent work, and showcasing the more recent directions his artistic journey has taken.
After six months there was a comprehensive rehang of the exhibition and on 30th April 2008 Anatomica opened in the County Hall Gallery. This new exhibition revealed a bolder approach to colour and scale in Azam’s paintings, and was greeted by much critical acclaim in the press.
The evolution of Azam’s creative vision has incorporated not only new artistic concerns, but also an exploration of new media in his work. Moving beyond the canvas, his recent forays into sculpture, principally using bronze, have signalled a new artistic adventure, which was revealed most prominently at the unveiling of his sculpture, The Dance, on 21st February 2008.
The maquette of the The Dance also recently set the bar for Azam’s commercial value, as it fetched the highest price at a charity auction for the Special Yoga Centre in North London on 1st May 2008. The auction was very successful in raising significant funds for the charity, which benefited from works donated by artists including Peter Blake, Marc Quinn and Damian Hirst. However, Azam’s work fetched by far the most on the night.
July 2008 will mark a further stage in Azam’s artistic adventure, as he takes part in a pioneering creative experiment into the unknown. Experiencing totally weightless conditions similar to those in space, Nasser will climb aboard a specially modified aircraft and work at 23,000 feet to produce work inspired by the body’s experience of zero gravity.
Azam’s stylistic signature is largely defined by abstract representation of the human form. A masterly technical control of colour and line infuses his paintings of bodily shapes and gestures with a profound emotional intimacy and intensity. The sensuality, fragility, violence and mystery of human experience are powerfully conveyed by Azam’s very painterly concern with formal sophistication. Azam’s recent work as a sculptor essentially extends the dynamic rhythms of his paintings into three-dimensional forms, with the body’s physical and emotional states remaining at the core of their meaning.
[edit] Current exhibitions and works
- His new exhibition 'Anatomica' opened April 30, 2008
- His sculpture, "The Dance", was unveiled on the South Bank, London, next to Dalí's "L'Éléphant Spatial", on February 21, 2008.
[edit] Bibliography
John-Paul Stonard (2008-03-20). Azam: A Short History of Sensation, Volume I. Follow this link to purchase on Amazon [1]
