Exploring The Beautiful Spaces on Canvas

If nothing else, art in our modern world is all about what each person chooses to see and feel, when they engage with a piece of work. Is it the colours? Is it the texture,? Is it the content or even its size? Sometimes though it is what is not there that becomes the most striking visual element of a painting. An image of the dining room, table and chairs, but there is no one to sit, gather and enjoy. A portrait without a face, what does this mean? The Space, in the silence the void speaks volumes. Find out more in Exploring The Beautiful Spaces on Canvas. Image on left Mohammed Sami, Reborn

The empty table; significant at this moment in time. A long table with food and drink but empty chairs, where are the people? In Israel, this is the artistic statement made by those drawing attention to those still individuals held captive by Hamas. In Palestinian territories, many created posters in solidarity with their cause. But it’s the space that leaves the biggest impact, it’s not just who is missing but why…

A new exhibition, ‘After the Storm’, by Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace has opened. From Tuesday 9th July to Sunday 6th October 2024, it marks a decade of Blenheim Art Foundation’s award-winning programme of contemporary art.

Drawing on his own experiences living under Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, and subsequently, as a refugee in Sweden, artist, Mohammed Sami uses large-scale paintings, of abandoned interiors, claustrophobic cityscapes and eerie depictions of everyday objects including clothing, mattresses, chairs and tables, to explore displacement, war, loss and power, and in many ways by what cannot be seen from conflict.

There is a haunting absence of people within each image, these depictions of space within place. But abandonment goes further than the rooms and homes left behind. There is the deeper trauma of lost love, separation and utter aloneness that seeps through the sun-bleached colours of these familiar yet haunting images.

‘painting becomes the only medium to grasp what is not there in painting anymore’.

Mohammed Sami

Not only regarding past loss but future emptiness, canvases haunted by those left behind whether physically or metaphorically; space that echoes more than by filling in an image. It is not just a lost life but the unborn lives that never had a chance to come into the world and fulfil their potential.

For this exhibition, the artist developed an entirely new body of work, building on recurring themes and imagery within his practice, and at the same time drawing inspiration from the history and collection of the Palace itself.

Named after the 1704 Battle of Blenheim, the building was originally intended to be a reward to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough from Queen Anne for his military triumphs against the French and Bavarians in the War of the Spanish Succession, culminating in the Battle of Blenheim.

Still lived in today by the current Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, illustrious paintings, sculptures and tapestries depict war scenes and portraits of the British establishment, alongside former regal inhabitants and visitors including luminaries such as Sir Winston Churchill; its most famous inhabitant.

After several visits, the artist spent over a year making site-specific artworks, some of which were specifically painted to hang in exact rooms. Using Blenheim’s interiors and artworks as inspiration, the works blend into the surroundings as if always having hung unnoticed there, whilst shocking the viewer into deep thought at the same time.

Take, for example, After the Storm, the central painting in the series. Hung in the Green Drawing Room which contains a rich collection of classical portraits, this vast almost trompe l’oeil painted surface appears ‘real’ or three-dimensional, the ‘faded’ yellow of the brocade wallpaper of both the room and of the painting meld, becoming almost one.

Mohammed Sami, After the Storm Mixed media on linen

Yet there is a more faded rectangle as if a painting that sat there for years, has been removed. Hauntingly ghostly, yet beautiful and thought-provoking, a final question also lingers…who removed the picture and why? Black dots scatter left to right, are these bullet holes?

Or take the image The Grinder, from a bird’s eye view looking down on an empty table and chairs, the only suggestion of any kind of life form is the shadow of the ceiling fan, reminding us that every day still goes on. The pattern of the carpet, light and shadow meet where brightness bleaches colour, tells us the sun still comes up and goes down every 24 hours.

Mohammed Sami, The Grinder Mixed media on linen

The abandoned room with the space left by its former occupants echoes a kind of white noise of what’s been left behind. The only present sound the never-ending turns of the fan… did they leave it in a hurry and forget to turn the fan off, we don’t know the story but imagination is in some ways more powerful than what may have happened.

Hung in the ceiling of the Great Hall, where The Grinder hangs, is James Thornhill’s allegorical painting of Victory, (Roman god of victory) crowning John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, as she points to a plan of the 1704 Battle of Blenheim, at which he triumphed over the French during the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Palace, a site filled with artworks that glorify war military achievements and territorial expansion become the perfect foil for all these works that pull away from victorious glory to post pain.

Yet, some portraits do appear in these new works, but not in any way like the established portraiture hanging from almost every wall in this historical house, of classical figures, painted larger than life.

Wall of Cockroaches, part portrait, part image ‘blown’ away head, questions the role of the military. The artist was intrigued by the ceremonial attire in portraits of the successive Dukes of Marlborough and the ways such historical figures have projected their power through portraiture, uniform and pageantry.

A theme he has touched on through his 10 years of work, find in the Long Library, Stiff Head and Wall of Cockroaches that frame John Michael Rysbrack’s marble statue of Queen Anne, the monarch who gifted Blenheim to the First Duke.

Mohammed Sami Stiff Head Acrylic on linen

Both paintings are of unidentified generals in ceremonial dress, the former reminiscent of the hussar uniform of an 18th-century cavalry officer and the latter of a 20th-century military leader. Neither picture shows a head, a face, a comment perhaps on the ‘fall’ of leaders or even the pulling down of the status of military dictators. In Wall of Cockroaches the rather hated insects crawl across the canvas, perhaps a once loved image of a beloved leader, left to rot, as if abandoned by his supporters.

Mohammed Sami Wall of Cockroaches Mixed media on linen

There are 14 images in all, some of which deal indirectly with the artist’s own experiences of conflict some are commentaries on others. As well as other content such as abandoned items, shadows, land and even water.

The subtle placement of each image, with purpose, almost allows them to meld into the scenery, to be missed; yet not. Because the emotional impact catches the power of each painting, like a blast of emotive power. Here context plays such a huge part in the intense joy of this exhibition, the juxtaposition of painting and place, the glory of war and its reality, the archetypal British Lord and the refugee.

On top of all the metaphors is the sense of shadow and light. It is as if the artist brought the sunshine of his birthplace into each image, where the light may have faded colours yet the light brings a sort of non-harmonious ‘Chiaroscuro of his loss’ to the paintings; and a little bit of heartbreak to the viewer.

The exhibition will be open from 9 July – 6 October 2024, 10.30am 4.45pm to find out more visit www.blenheimartfoundation.org.uk

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.Cent Magazine, London, Be Inspired; Get Involved