Exhibitions

Shadow Work a solo exhibition of Saudi Arabian abstract painter, Nasser Almulhim.

Shadow Work comprises a selection of 10 acrylic on canvas works in both large and small scale, divided into two sections, which place the artworks into dialogue with one another. Almulhim understands these works on canvas as the materialisation and negotiation of the thoughts and emotions that pass through his mind, particularly relating to personal struggles with depression. One group of works offer up a feeling of weightlessness and comprise pared-back, minimalist compositions while the other is charged and chaotic; an amalgamation of the fleeting sources of inspiration that the artist encounters in his daily life absorbed from local architecture, nature, light as well as intimate spaces in the home.

 Almulhim approached painting as a mode of healing from mental trauma in his youth. Embarking upon a journey to heal the mind, Almulhim explored and drew from various schools of thought that span Eastern mysticism and spiritual practices - from Sufism to Buddhism -, as well as western philosophies and approaches to psychoanalysis particularly the Jungian approach. Almulhim mines the perspectives of Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung, specifically, his reflections on Shadow Work. In The Philosophical Tree (1945), Jung asserts that: ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’
Saudi painter and 3D artist Nasser Almulhim’s practice meditates upon the interaction between geometric and organic forms and their connection to the human psyche. His practice assumes a playful and intuitive approach to art-making, doubling as a therapeutic act that opens what the artist understands to be: “the gate of self-healing.” For this body of work Nasser Almulhim has produced a new sculptural work that materialises the artist’s inner child. The artist is fascinated with the emboldened palette that characterises the playgrounds that are popular in Riyadh. Following the writings of psychoanalysts Jung and Freud, he contends that by establishing a conversation with his inner child repressed memories or trauma might be unleashed. Almulhim draws influence from multiple movements in art history from Modernism to Abstract Expressionism; in this work the influence of Calder’s joyful and animated mobile sculptures is palpable.