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 collections locally and abroad, including the Mohammed Afkhami and EKARD Collections. He held two sold out solo presentations in 2022, both at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and Abu Dhabi Art. In 2023, he was a finalist in the Art Figura Prize, leading to an exhibition at the Perla Castrum Museum in Schwartzenberg Castle, Germany. That same year, he was selected as the artist-in-residence for the prestigious Institute of Public Architecture’s Blockhouse Residency on Governor’s Island, New York. In November 2023, he returned to Abu Dhabi Art for another sold-out presentation.
Salaam completed a residency at the prestigious Nirox Foundation, followed by a critically acclaimed exhibition in 2024. In June that same year he completed the Giorgio Angeli Residency in Pietrasanta, Italy.
In 2025, Salaam will complete a residency at Studio Maretti, Pietrasanta, Italy, folllowing which he will present his first public solo exhibition in Italy, via the Medici Foundation and the Pietrasanta Arts Council.