In his Loudest Sound exhibition at Dupont Rail Gallery, painter and illustrator Ali Sheikh explores the stated “intensities of life through oil paint, ink, pencil, and found object.” While Sheikh’s output here at Dupont Rail is uniformly visual, and in that respect entirely mute, its “sound” amounts to an oblique referent. This bias of eye over ear content is the rightful point of the show – a nuanced rendering of what the eye sees, generally favouring the photographic in quality.
Installation view of Ali Sheikh, Loudest Sound at the Dupont Rail
While paintings such as Alphorn and Guido include meticulous oils on canvas with musical instruments as subjects, the miming of sound with image is not apparent.
Ali Sheikh, Guido, 2025, oil on canvas. 4’ x 3’
An exception is Panorama, with its trail of smudged dies and looping spiral. Until the timing is felt and understood may be the “loudest” painting in the show with its tensely coiled loops rendered in black on yellow background.
Ali Sheikh, Until the timing is felt and understood, 2025, oil on canvas, 30” x 24”
Likewise, Whistleblower features a pair of ruddy pipers, a face contorted in the act of blow, overlaid by a float of spiral and dies. Its prevalent blood vessel red might even generate a sense of synesthesia, a crossing of sight with sound.
Ali Sheikh, Whistleblower, 2025, oil on canvas, 3’ x 4’
Goblins, a floor installation consisting mainly of strewn bar line paper, shoes, and white gloves suggest an invisible conductor, the imagined possibilities ranging from anything between Leonard Bernstein to Disney’s Mickey Mouse of Fantasia.
Ali Sheikh, Goblins, installation
A pertinent note of comparison is the current Peter Doig House of Music exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London, England, where an elaborate sound system had been installed. Also, Christian Marclay, a visual artist with a rich association with music who is showing mono prints of vinyl record sleeves and covers at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. With Loudest Sound, Ali Sheikh has produced a uniquely personal documentation in paint of ways in which music weaves inseparably into the everyday.
Installation view of Ali Sheikh, Loudest Sound at the Dupont Rail
Loudest Sound is a Collective City Gallery Project that began in February 2025. The staging of eight shows is projected per year, Dupont Rail Gallery being the current venue. Ali Sheikh was the first of nine artists’/curators’ proposals from 220 submissions for this year.
Steve Rockwell
Images are courtesy of the artist.
*Exhibition information: Ali Sheikh, Loudest Sound, January 21 – February 1, 2026, Collective City Gallery Project at Dupont Rail, 1444 Dupont St. #10, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed – Sun 12 – 5 pm.