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Trained as a painter, Sharif first received critical recognition for his figurative images. By the mid-1970s, he had applied his compositional skills to drafting caricatures for a variety of United Arab Emirates newspapers and magazines. Using his platform to critique everything from the United States’s foreign policy in the Middle East to the changing economic realities of life in Dubai after the establishment of the U.A.E. in 1971, Sharif’s images have an immediacy and irreverence that makes their outspoken commentary all the more compelling.
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Depicted in Sharif’s cartoonish, caricature-like style, the figures in Raising Hands No. 2 (2009) and Raising Hands No. 3 (2009) raise their hands above their heads in an arc-like motion—simultaneously a wave goodbye, a sign of surrender, a plea for help, and a desire for acknowledgement. Rendered in sickly hues of blues and oranges with twisted, despondent expressions, the figures recall the emotive, distorted forms of German Expressionists, drawing parallels between their questioning of convention and Sharif’s own.
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