ALYINA ZAIDI

Resembling intricate, embroidered textiles, Zaidi’s paintings echo the literary traditions of post-independence India, where folkloric fables carry layered histories. Her enchanted landscapes are rich in colour and meticulous in detail. They draw on Persian and South Asian miniature painting, Byzantine and Sienese traditions, as well as memories of her childhood gardens in Kashmir and Delhi.

Rewilding was conceived with the gallery architecture in mind; upon entering, viewers feel as though they are stepping into an underground temple, a cave or womb-like environment. Anchoring the space is a large-scale painting flanked by two column-like works.The central work maps an alternate world; spiralling forms, rivers, roots, snakes and meandering vegetal motifs move across the surface in organic flux. Rather than presenting a stable landscape, Zaidi creates immersive environments that feel alive and unsettled. Within these layered terrains, subtle narratives unfold as viewers travel through the works, rather than observing them from a fixed position.

Recurring motifs such as eggs, fish, goats and frogs appear throughout the artist’s work, drawing in part on the traditions of Indian miniature painting. Rich in symbolism, these forms hold meanings that remain open and shifting. Eggs refer to cosmic creation and the birth of the universe, marking the movement from potential to form, while fish symbolise fertility, abundance and the flow of life. In Zaidi’s work, fish also take on architectural qualities, forming hybrid, both architectural and botanical-like structures within the landscape. A childhood memory of trout farms in Kashmir, long channels of densely packed fish bred for slaughter, informs the vertical divisions that structure many of the compositions. These ordered elements sit in tension with the surrounding organic movement, suggesting captivity and restricted agency. In Zaidi’s work, beauty is often accompanied by a sense of unease.

Veil-like patterns partially obscure sections of the canvas. Drawing on the Sufi concept of veiling and unveiling, these layered surfaces suggest that complete understanding remains just beyond reach. Caves, shadowed recesses and womb-like forms recur as spaces of origin and interior depth. Across these shifting scales, Zaidi’s surreal universe moves between the vast and the minute, where fact and fiction dissolve and myth, superstition and the unknowable intertwine with reality in all its complexity.

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Alyina Zaidi (b. 1995, New Delhi, India) lives and works in London. She

has an MA in painting from Royal College of Art, London and a BA

from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. Her work

has been included in exhibitions at White Cube, London; Alexander

Berggruen, New York; Newchild Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium; Indigo +

Madder Gallery, London; and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London;

among others.