Rider
  Green Cardamom, London, 29th May 2009 to 26th June 2009

  A young child rests his tired chin on his father's head, riding his shoulders. The child's body is lax with slumber, while the father looks gently ahead. Riding, or learning how to ride, has universal symbolic associations with bravery and heroism. Known for his sensitive male portrayals, Ali Kazim in this series turns his attention to rites of passage that transform boys into young men. In Sher Khan, a toddler is nonplussed as he sits astride a plastic fairground tiger, unimpressed and unaware of the dangers ahead. His outfit, created with a pressure print bears a fanciful bird pattern, only revealed by careful examination, heightening the sense of the absurd. Older and more comfortable in the saddle, Shah Savaar (Great rider) is mounted on a wooden horse, the sort used to train children in riding schools to prepare them for actual horsemanship. With a heavily saturated turmeric background, this seductive image is handled with Kazim's consummate skill in his technique of repeated washes of pigment on strengthened wasli paper. Exquisitely detailed, the grain of the wood distracts from the fact that despite the confidence of his posture, the boy is not on a real horse, but once again an immobile, pretend object. The final work in the exhibition is a simple rendition of the wooden horse itself, inviting a stretch of the imagination that children are first encouraged to make, and then forced to abandon as they are steered into adulthood.

This exhibition also marks the release of the Rider series of intaglio prints by Ali Kazim. There are three individual prints, each in an edition of ten.