Haya Zaidi’s Up Against officially opens this Saturday, May 2
Reception: 5–7pm
Kavi Gupta | Washington Blvd., Fl.2
Join us to celebrate Zaidi’s debut with Kavi Gupta and her first solo exhibition in the United States.
This body of work draws inspiration from classical South Asian and Sufi narratives – poems like Gulshan-i ‘Ishq, Madhumalati, Hamzanama, and other mythic romances – in which a recurring motif unfolds: a man undertakes perilous journeys through dark forests, confronts fearsome beasts, and ultimately rescues a princess, a figure often depicted as helpless, without agency. Zaidi revisits these stories and their characters, rewriting their narratives to reflect a contemporary perspective on women’s lives, power, and autonomy. She reimagines the monstrous and ferocious imagery of these manuscripts, transforming demons into whimsical, cartoon-like figures that coexist with women rather than threaten them. Through this intentional shift, Zaidi proposes that once fears or harmful myths are confronted, they lose their power – and can even appear absurd or playful. By situating women as active, self-determined participants rather than passive figures to be saved, her paintings interrogate and subvert the traditional fairy tales and Sufi myth, recontextualizing them for a contemporary lens.
