Previewing at Camden Art Centre in January 2023, Mohammed Sami’s (b.1984, Baghdad, Iraq) first institutional solo show in the UK will continue his long-standing exploration of memory in relation to time and conflict. Drawing on his own experiences living under Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, and subsequently as a refugee in Sweden, his large-scale paintings exquisitely render abandoned interiors, barricaded windows and uncanny depictions of apparently everyday objects including clothing, mattresses, chairs and tables. There is a haunting absence of people in these depictions of space and place, whose power lies as much in what cannot be seen or hovers just beyond the frame.
Presented across Camden Art Centre’s iconic Galleries 1 and 2, this landmark exhibition will include a series of major new paintings and will be accompanied by the first dedicated monograph on Sami, designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio with essays by Darian Leader and Amy Sherlock.
The exhibition is organised by Camden Art Centre in collaboration with De La Warr Pavilion where it will open in summer 2023.
