ZEENAT IMAN’s 2024 Solo Exhibition at USC ROSKI IFT GAllery

Chickens.
The quirky, odd, not good, not bad bird is a fascinating symbol through which many curious associations can be drawn. Some find the chicken to be cute, some find it funny, to some it may be a symbol of rural life and to others just an innuendo for timidness.

The series of paintings feature picturesque, renaissance compositions of the animal while others have an absurdist stylised atmosphere to them. The pieces tend to use warm toned colours to connote a sense of peace, innocence or just overall ‘happiness’. Yet, each work fea- tures one symbol, element, or undertone that requires perhaps a closer look; these symbols become more disconcerting the more the viewer engages with each work.

Chickens thus become symbols of consumption. The consumer socie- ty in which we live (in the West) utilises chickens in perverse, exploita- tive ways, as seen through the exhaustive mass-poultry industry. They are indeed a perfect microcosm of capitalist socio-economies, whose overall goals and habits in turn are harmful to the individual, the planet, to the working class, and to an extent, even to the ruling class, whom the system supposedly serves to benefit.

The aim of this series is to bring about questions about the institu- tions and conventions of consumer culture that continue to allow atrocities at local and global scales to occur, poisoning the land and water, disconnecting the consumer from the animal life that is lost in mass-meat agriculture, the consistent instant gratification and the idea that we should want all of this. Further, the series explores in particular hens and their role as the primary commodity of the poul- try industry owes itself as a mirror to the reproductive social labour expected of women in a patriarchal capitalist society.

Indeed, the humour and absurdity of my chickens is underlined by implicit reflection on humans’ tendency to diminish the lives of other beings, despite our own likeness to them. We are the chickens. The chickens are us, the chickens are nature.





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@ZEEnatiman.studio
zeenat.i.javaid@gmail.com
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SELECTED WORKS




Koi Fish Light
2024
Lighting Design
USC Athletics
2025
Graphic Design
Factory
2024
Sculptural Insatallation
Chicken Coup
2023
Oils on Wood
Hot Chicks
2023
Oils on Canvas
    Casual Gym Shoe
    2024
    Product Design, Apparel Design
INIDAY JEWELRY
2025
Product Design
Personal Project
2024
Graphic Design
    CTZN Cosmetics  Materials
    2024
    Graphic Design, Social Media
Revit Proficiency Project
2024
Architectural Design
Revit Proficiency Project
2024
Architectural Design, 2D to 3D, Rendering
      Experimental Lighting Design
      2023
      Sculptural Installation,
      Lighting Design
      Experimental Lighting Design
      2023
      Sculptural Installation,
      Lighting Design
      Experimental Lighting Design
      2023
      Sculptural Installation,
      Lighting Design