More zombies...

Here are some images of a zombie work in progress, which also mark the stages in my attempts to learn photoshop. I still have a long way to go but at least I'm now getting to the stage of being comfortable with the program’s basics and can experiment with things as I go along. I also include a zombie wallpaper-type layout that I’ve been tinkering with.

Portraits from Villawood

Here are some portraits that I drew on trips to the Villawood detention centre with the Refugee Art Project. The group was founded in late 2010 to provide art classes for asylum seekers in detention and to display their work in public exhibitions. The idea is to allow detainees to express themselves through the medium of art, and to convey something of their experiences to the Australian community. Amongst our participants are a large number of people from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, who are some the largest groups in our detention centres. Their works vary across diverse genres of art, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and artworks made from found objects, including food!

The Marvels of Things Created and the Miraculous Aspects of Existing Things

Here is another work from 2011, titled 'The Marvels of Things Created and the Miraculous Aspects of Existing Things'. It is inspired by a 13th century manuscript of the same name which was written by a Muslim cosmographer, and which contains descriptions of the celestial spheres, geological forms, types of animals and uncanny creatures, including weird humanoids and animal-human mixtures. Pictorially, I wanted to mix the conventions of Persian and Indian miniature painting, with its often strange and fantastical, luminescent, coral-like landscapes and composite creatures, with my interest in comic book illustration (though it certainly leans more towards the latter). It was exhibited as a light box.

Stop Creeping Sharia!

I exhibited this zombie poster in Sydney's At the Vanishing Point gallery in the 'Contested Territories' exhibition last year. I had also forgotten that I even had this blog so it's time to update it and catch up on missed time! Here is the image and below is my artist's statement.

Artist’s Statement: “Stop Creeping Sharia!”

As channel Seven’s Today Tonight program recently reported: ‘Sharia law is being practiced across Australia. In every capital city sheikhs are dispensing Islamic justice!’ In conversation with the owner of a Muslim bookshop in Lakemba, Today Tonight’s reporter intoned that: ‘Australia already is an Islamic state!’ What the reporter failed to mention was that most Muslims understand sharia law according to the common obligations of prayer, fasting, and good moral sense. Instead, audiences were left wondering when these potential fifth columnists will overthrow ‘Australian laws’ and impose such oppressive punishments as stoning and amputation.

Thanks in part to the ‘war against terror’, Muslims are bombarded with distorted accusations and conspiracy theories that put a question mark under their civic morality. This is promoted by the political right, sections of the corporate media, and concerned citizen’s associations (such as ‘Q Society of Australia’ who describe Islam not as a religion but as a ‘totalitarian ideology’, comparable to fascism or Nazism). Such groups warn that Islamic values are a threat to Australia’s secular democracy. They refer to “creeping sharia” or “sharia by stealth”, as the Fairfax journalist Miranda Devine put it.

The Zombie genre in film and comics has often dramatised and provided social commentary on a range of political and cultural anxieties. In particular, the figure of the undead (as neither alive nor dead, yet driven forward by a primordial desire for human flesh) raises interesting questions about the conceptual limits and nature of the ‘civilisation’ under threat. Muslim zombies are my response to the ludicrous myths and conspiracy theories that frequently enter into discussions about Western Muslims and secular democracy.'

This is an ongoing project that I will update regularly, and a written zombie manifesto is in the works!