Paintings

While Sharif is best known for his sculptural compositions, he was a dedicated painter—insisting, “It is so easy now for me to give up painting and make objects, but time and time again I feel painting is important.” Sharif first received critical recognition for his figurative images. By the mid-1970s, he had applied his compositional skills to drafting caricatures that offer outspoken social commentary for a variety of Emirati newspapers and magazines. Later paintings by the artist amplify these cartoons’ political critique and gestural style. The modes of critical appraisal presented in Sharif’s paintings prove foundational to his overall approach to artmaking. His incisive representations attest, per Sharif, “Every act from man is a political act. An artist is a realist by nature … I record reality through visual symbols which overflow with combinations of black humor.”