Colors and figures
A sunset wash glows behind the figure tying his durag in Try’na Catch a Wave, and warm hues dapple the canvas in How We Live it, Spirits Visit. The two figures also strike classical-inspired poses: the first, with arms up, in a pose one imagines from a life drawing class, with defined and articulated limbs and hands.
Connections to art history
The second figure, likely seated, given that other person’s hands seem to hover above, is having his hair braided. Half his head is finished into neat corn rows. The other half remains to be done and puffs out above his skull and the comb tucked in. From his chin all the way back to the braider’s comb, light and texture radiates out from all facets of the figure’s profile, alluding to the halos of Christianity and medieval and renaissance artwork.
Mindfulness of the beauty of a moment
Both paintings elevate a mere moment of caring for one’s hair (at one’s own hands or in the hands’ of others) and elevate it in multiple ways: by memorializing it as a painting, using bright hues and dramatic gestural impasto (brushmarks on the canvas), and with the marks of self-care in the use of a du-rag (used to protect and care for one’s hair), and having someone braid or un-braid another’s hair into cornrows, a protective style.
A simple gesture as fine art
Ali-Salaam isolates and distills a single moment of daily life into a uniquely interpreted work of art. In so doing, he highlights how to appreciate that instant. He memorializes and elevates the tension and emotion through the human figure, and often through their gesture, subtly alluding to the promise they hold: whether it be anticipation, tenderness, pride, or grief. Ali-Salaam captures what appears mundane, but upon closer inspection is anything but ordinary.
Documenting quiet moments
Ali-Salaam’s work takes these intimate moments, and shares them with an audience. The framing of the work suggests intimacy. From a father looking over the shoulder of his child, to the intimacy of a son cutting his father’s hair, these are not pieces documenting momentous moments in history, nor with the intention of presenting a public persona. Rather, they honor quiet moments.
The intimacy of looking down a woman’s dress
An example of a quiet intimate moment is found in My Own Hell To Raise. (oil on canvas, 45.5 x 32 in., 2025). This playful piece features the figure of a woman and a tube of lipstick. It takes an intimate and up close perspective. The framing also reinforces how Ali-Salaam’s framing and position work to evoke particular feelings in his viewers. In this piece, the viewer is put into close contact with the figure, one cannot help but feel a sense of either familiarity, or dominance as the viewer is positioned to look down at the subject from above, virtually seeing right down the front of her dress. Here, the viewer virtually becomes the artist, standing in his metaphorical shoes as he stands in front of the woman depicted. Clearly this is a piece meant to memorialize a moment rather than a message or historic occurrence to share with a large audience.
