MOhammed sami

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Mohammed Sami approaches painting as an allegorical representation of the striking image of conflict and violence. His paintings explore belated memories triggered by common everyday objects from when he immigrated to Sweden from his native Iraq.

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Rather than using the stereotypical image of trauma to testify to the Iraq conflict, which he witnessed first-hand, Sami deploys painting to articulate war, memory, and loss obliquely. The semi-abstract register and multi-textured paint create a nuanced relationship between the original event and its present recollection in Sami’s artworks. These often appear playful. Yet, traditional genres such as still-life, internal-external spaces and landscapes acquire a strange twist, mute, and become uncanny illusions and threats.

 

Sami uses Arabic linguistic signifiers such as Metonymy and Pun as metaphorical elements to exchange the radical depiction of trauma and conflict with the image of banal and mundane. Therefore, in many cases, his paintings elude the classification as 'trauma', enabling a transient context for the viewers and avoiding being didactic. The affective nature of his paintings does not convey a concrete message. It aims to thrust the viewers into an involuntary mode of critical inquiry rather than a specific truth. 

 

Sami’s painting challenges the cliché image of suffering and provides a symptomatic perspective of conflict dynamics and its effects through a slow personal reading. His autobiographical works aim to evoke a widespread sense of loss that inhabits cultures collectively when selfishness extends into generosity.

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Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1984, Sami lives and works in London, UK. Having completed studies in drawing and painting at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, 2005. Sami graduated from Belfast School of Art in 2015 and earned an MFA at Goldsmiths College, London, in 2018. 

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Arts Council Collection, London, holds his paintings;

Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo. 

Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 

Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York,

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA.

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, USA.

Government Art Collection, London.

HE Museum, Foshan, China. 

Imperial War Museum, London.

Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami, USA.

K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China.

Kistefos Museum of Art, Oslo. 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, USA.

Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, France. 

Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva, Switzerland.

Musée National d'Art Moderne, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. 

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, USA.

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA.

Pinault Collection, Paris.

Rollins Museum of Art, Florida, USA.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, USA.

Tate, London.

York Art Gallery, York.