AAAH + 🕉️

Signs of a softer world

Zeinab Saleh

BAMPFA

(Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive)

Ongoing – April 19, 2026

     In the 289th installment of its MATRIX* series, BAMPFA (gently) hits it out of the park. This time, the premise is “Softer World” which refers to contemporary themes in art and design emphasizing gentleness, empathy and quiet contemplation as antidotes to chaos. We have already been treated to this experience in the Museum of the African Diaspora’s exhibition, Liberatory Living (2024-25). However, in these times can there ever be too much beauty, respite, gathering or reimagining? Plus, Saleh’s works introduce the natural world and deliberative mediation as aspects of this artistic refrain.

FIRST SOLO MUSEUM EXHIBITION IN US

     Nairobi-born and London-based, Zeinab Saleh debuts a new group of paintings that present a meditative perspective on the everyday, bringing visitors into a world that is at once subtle and hazy, yet strikingly clear and rich in detail. The installation intentionally creates an environment of slowness and quietude, offering a hiatus in a world so often filled with confusion and chaos. 

SAY Aaah

     Throughout her work, Saleh approaches painting with a sense of material experimentation, drawing on histories of abstraction and techniques familiar to printmaking. She places objects directly onto the canvas and uses washes of acrylic paint to create impressions from plants and textiles. These are then layered with her delicate brushwork and ethereal color palette.

Fragments of Prayer (3 details)

     Many of Saleh’s paintings draw on her own personal memory, referencing familiar domestic spaces and depicting images or objects taken from her own life. Yet her paintings demonstrate the possibility of connection even to the unfamiliar. Through her distinctive use of color and light, Saleh transforms the spaces in her paintings, inviting visitors to project their own narratives of individual contemplation. 

* MATRIX is a series of contemporary art exhibitions, introduces the Bay Area community to exceptional work being made internationally, nationally and locally. It creates a rich connection to the current dialogues on contemporary art and demonstrates that the art of this moment is vital, dynamic and often challenging. Confronting traditional practices of display and encouraging new, open modes of artistic creation, MATRIX provides an experimental framework for an active interchange between the artist, the Museum and the viewer.

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