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Shah Numair Ahmed Abbasi’s practice draws on popular culture, anecdotes and colloquialisms to stage personal and social narratives. His work attempts to challenge the politics behind how gender is socially constructed and performed. The figure of the male nude is a recurring theme, often presented in ways that undermine or question idealised masculine virtues. Recent turns in his practice observe how queer men navigate issues related to their identity during interactions within and beyond the community, and across domestic, public, and virtual environments. He repurposes dating apps to investigate the dynamics of fragile spaces where interactions are dislocated, ephemeral, and motive-driven. For the Third Muslim, Abbasi spectates a space which proves to be conducive to the local gay men to freely exercise their lifestyle and desire while maintaining low visibility and consequently without raising speculation - a dynamic, he opines, that is facilitated by a heteronormative, patriarchal society which taboos queer discourses. 

Shah Numair Ahmed Abbasi lives and works in Karachi. He completed his BFA with a distinction from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in 2014 where he specialised in sculpture and photography. Abbasi was the recipient of 2018 Pakistan Residency at Gasworks in London, and is a visiting artist fellow in Spring 2020 at the Laxmi Mittal South Asian Institute at Harvard University, Cambridge.