ZARAH CASSIM
(b. 1992 Cape Town, South Africa)

Zarah Cassim is a painter concerned with notions of perception. She uses the mediums of painting and photography to affect a viewer’s encounter with spatial illusion and reflect the creative filter through which she views the world.

Woven into the theme of unveiling the artifice of reality is a concern with natural forms and spaces. It is in natural forms that she finds the vehicle for a sense of disorientation: the reflection of a chaotic or absurd world, which marks a breaking point for the human condition.

Each work is a personal reflection for Cassim: a sensitive, romantic memory. Some of her surfaces revel in the flat beauty of the painted mark, inviting the viewer to be seduced by the texture and material of her tool of illusion. Other works evoke a dream-like, ungraspable landscape that threatens to dissolve at any concrete claim over form.

Cassim graduated with an Honours in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town in 2014. She currently lives and works between Paris and Cape Town.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
Bed full of flowers, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa

2024
Under the Sun, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa

2023
Asleep, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
Curiosities / Perception, Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
Mango Farm, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
The Guise of Reality, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2015
These Spaces/These Places, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025
10 Years | Summer 2025, Everard Read, London, UK
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
Motherhood, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Thresholds, Southern Guild, Cape Town, South Africa

2024
Hold that thought, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
See Green, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa

2023
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
Hot Spell, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
Terra, La Maison de Pommard, Burgundy, France
Colourful Horizons, Caudan Arts Centre, Mauritius

2022
Seduction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Reflection, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa

2021
In Conversation, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Winner of PicknPay Futurewear Competition, South Africa

2020
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
A Hazy Shade of Winter, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Otomys Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia

2019
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Draw Art Fair London, with Otomys Contemporary, UK
Wildflowers, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2018
AAF, London, UK; Brussels, Belgium; Hong Kong
The Grand V, Rust-en-Vrede Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Turbine Art Fair, with Salon 91, Johannesburg, South Africa
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Folklore, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles, USA
Art Hamptons, with Envie D’Art, USA
Otomys Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2017
Trees Make Forests, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
The Other Art Fair, New York, USA
Turbine Art Fair with Salon91, Johannesburg, South Africa
Nano 1.1, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2016
KKNK, Absa Gallery.

2015
Finalist, ABSA L’Atelier competition, South Africa
Turbine Art Fair with Salon91, Johannesburg, South Africa
Paint It Black, Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
Finalist, Sasol New Signatures competition, South Africa