Shezad Dawood

“I like to break and remake things.” Calling himself-medium-agnostic, London-based British-Pakistani Shezad Dawood interweaves stories, realities and symbolism to create richly layered artworks, spanning painting, textiles, sculpture, film and digital media. The breadth of Dawood's output is quite astounding, and his ability to jump across an omniversal divide is worth the time spent listening to this alone. Dawood currently has a solo exhibition of ambitious new work entitled ‘Night in the Garden of Love’ at Wiels art centre in Brussels. This new body of work is inspired in part by the music, writings and art of the late legendary jazz musician Yusef Lateef, who coined the term auto-physio-psychic music to describe music that comes from the mental, physical and spiritual self, and with whose work Dawood felt an intense connection. Ahead of this exhibition, Danielle visited Dawood at his studio in Hackney, London, where he talked her through his latest work, as well as his remarkable textile collection;vhis collaboration with the British fashion designer Priya Ahluwalia ; his thoughts on NFTs;  and his passion for marine conservation and how he’s working to support it through one of his manifold creative collaborations.