Mohammed Sami: Shrouded In Mystery
Mohammed Sami’s poignant and evocative paintings are an exploration of memory, and its vulnerability to time. Absent of people, the settings and quotidian objects in his works are nevertheless permeated with the trace of human presence; while evidence of turmoil or trauma is never directly referenced, obscure and haunting narratives are conveyed. Sami mines personal experiences from his formative years in Iraq to ground his work, but by embracing ambiguity, he creates a sense of universal familiarity. Negotiating the past through painting, he harnesses the metaphorical potential of different mark-making techniques to interrupt a straightforward narrative reading. Blurred objects often appear as if they are coming apart or moving across the canvas itself, suggesting gaps or slippage of memory. Sami’s compositions unfurl as cryptic vignettes of fragmented scenes, excavated from the past.