Zeinab Saleh 

Quiet sovereignty, 2024

On the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner London, Zeinab Saleh has created a new lithograph based on a detail from her 2024 painting The sovereignty of quiet.

In her serene depictions of scenes from the domestic world, British artist Zeinab Saleh (b. 1996) refigures objects and places from her personal life—such as embroidered linens, sleeping pets, and richly patterned prayer mats—into evocative and enigmatic compositions. These works are suffused with nostalgic stillness yet infinitely open-ended in their emotive potential.

The present multicolor lithograph—published by Utopia Editions and marking Saleh’s first time working in this medium—derives from a detail of the artist’s 2024 painting The sovereignty of quiet. The painting was featured in Saleh’s solo exhibition at Tate Britain, London, earlier this year.

To create this print, Saleh used charcoal and liquid pigments on Mylar to build the image that was eventually printed on an offset lithography press, translating the uniquely ethereal tonalities and textures of her paintings and drawings to the printed realm.

Saleh often incorporates animals into her compositions, mining their myriad associations with the human world as well as their innate unknowability. Here, she depicts a lone cat lounging on a vibrant tapestry of overlapping prayer mats, its black-and-white fur marked with a fantastical pattern of crescent moons and stars.