Safeya Sharif | NYUAD: “Pressure Points”, MFA Year One Student Exhibition

Safeya Sharif participated in NYUAD’s Project Space as a part of the MFA Year One Exhibition, “Pressure Points”.⁠

In this body of work 'Familiarity in Fragmented Simulations', Safeya explores the intersection of familiarity within abstraction and the intuitive process through canvas stretchers crafted from linoleum cutouts. She transforms them into frames that are stretched, molded into sculptures, and assembled into pieces that evoke windows or endless doors.⁠

Pressure points demonstrate that the outside is indelibly linked to the inside. A place, a situation or an issue can be a pressure point, denoting a vulnerability that, with the right amount of applied force, can be manipulated to produce a desired outcome. On the human body, pressure points can be used for healing as well as for combat; while in medicinal practices they can guide one to gradual relief, their use in martial arts or emergency medical interventions produce instantaneous outcomes.

The artists in this exhibition are applying pressure to matter—literally and figuratively—probing into personal, social, or political issues to prompt a reaction. They explore widely diverse subjects in ways just as distinctive, such as the dynamics of the art world, the affordances as well as shortcomings of language itself, the supposed boundaries of an artistic medium, or the inner workings of the built environment. Whether it is the perception of a place versus its actuality, the libidinal economies behind a business card, the distance between the self and the other, or the limits of representation to convey a catastrophe, the MFA first-year students find the pressure points, and press on them.

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