The first major solo exhibition by British artist Shezad Dawood proves to be a challenging experience for SARAH MAYHEW at Modern Art Oxford.

A cacophony of cultural collisions, integration and appropriation… “Where am I, who am I, and what am I?” were the words swimming at speed around my mind as I entered into, and became submerged in, a world of re-examination that is Piercing Brightness at Modern Art Oxford, the first major solo exhibition of British artist Shezad Dawood.

Featuring Dawood’s most recent film and installation work, Piercing Brightness incorporates film, painting and light sculpture across discursive networks, parallel time frames, locations and communities.

Scooped out and squashed together like melting ice cream on a cone, his works often include restaged and re-imagined moments taken from multiple cultures and histories. Obscure yet familiar, mysterious yet recognizable, this is no easy-going exhibition, and it’s not supposed to be.

Referencing his varied cultural heritage through his work, Dawood was born in London in 1974 to a Pakistani mother and Indian father, and grew up with an Irish Catholic stepmother. Playing on the evocative nature of language, cultural symbols, signs and sounds throughout this exhibition, and his practice as a whole, we see the artist exploring cultural hybridity; dipping in and out of religions, and cultural identities with equal amounts of measure and respect.

Experiencing an outer-body lure towards the glowing, flashing screen I could feel the blood race through my veins with excitement as I arrived on the first floor at Modern Art Oxford and found myself before Trailer – a 15-minute experimental “trailer” for the artist’s feature length film, Piercing Brightness.

Presented in an otherworldly bright white purpose-built viewing space that appears to pulse in the light, I felt myself drawn mesmerically into the white circle that echoes the shapes of the UFO on the screen. As his scenes snap between cultures, styles and periods, Dawood succeeds in highlighting a fascination with the search for spiritual value and fulfilment in - what he presents as - an increasingly fragmented society.

Bowing to a need for reflective respite the next couple of gallery spaces house a series of psychedelic collaged canvases described as research tools and storyboards for his film works, as well as a parallel investigation into form, context and meaning.

The fourth and final gallery space houses the first UK presentation of New Dream Machine Project, comprising a large-scale kinetic light sculpture and Super 16mm film. Referencing Brion Gysin’s original Dream Machine, a work conceived to have an effect on the viewer similar to deep meditation or dream sleep, New Dream Machine Project acknowledges Gysin’s influences, especially Sufism and Moroccan culture in 1960s Tangiers, and reimagines these historical narratives for a contemporary audience. It’s an intoxicating sensory bombardment that might make the viewer physically ill if smell was also introduced.

Piercing Brightness is a presentation of integration in the truest sense. Dawood said: “I am a great believer in opening up spaces through dialogue, and seeing points of connections between cultures. What is it we are so frightened of? Comparative religions, comparative social processes are simply about seeing what other people are doing, and how it all relates…”

* Shezad Dawood: Piercing Brightness is at Modern Art Oxford, Pembroke Street, until June 10. Call 01865 722733 or see modernartoxford.org.uk Admission is free.

Shezad Dawood discusses his practice and the works in Piercing Brightness with film scholar Mark Bartlett on Thursday, April 26, at 6pm. £5/£4 concessions, free to Friends. Booking is essential on 01865 813800