Abdus Salaam (b. 1989) is a visual artist who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
Salaam is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist inspired by natural beauty, ecology and spirituality. Salaam reveals a sensitivity to three-dimensional spatial expression and the metaphysical connotations inherent in nature, materials, forms and colours. Contemporary in his mystic abstraction, his work is rooted in poetry, calling from a familiar place to a state of peaceful and intensive longing. Through his use of materials, he explores the immaterial, always working alone to infuse his pieces with deep intention. Moving freely between mediums – from sculpture to painting, video, photographic ‘light paintings’, poetry, augmented reality, and music – he creates poetic worlds, from the intimate to large-scale installation.
His work is a cultural fusion of Western, Eastern and African sensibilities, shaped by his international coming of age and rooted in the dramatic landscapes around Cape Town, where his earliest memories were shaped on a farm, spending time painting and sculpting with natural materials in the mountains of South Africa with his mother.
Salaam is represented in prominent international private and institutional collections, including the EKARD Collection, Farjam Collection, Mohammed Afkhami Collection, Rupert Collection and the Scheryn Collections. He has presented in critically acclaimed institutional exhibitions at the Javett Art Center at the University of Pretoria, Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch and the NIROX Foundation which followed his residency at the Foundation in 2024. Salaam was additionally acknowledged as a finalist in the Art Figura Prize in 2023, which led to an exhibition at Perla Castrum Museum, Germany.
Salaam has completed notable residencies including the Institute of Public Architecture’s Blockhouse Residency on Governor’s Island, New York (2023), the Giorgio Angeli Residency (2024) and the Studio Maretti Residency (2025) located in Pietrasanta. This was followed by his first public solo exhibition in Italy via the Medici Foundation and Pietrasanta Arts Council in 2025.
In November 2025, Salaam showcased at the Art Cologne fair with THK Gallery, which will be followed by his highly anticipated fourth solo presentation at Abu Dhabi Art.