Mohammed Sami's Paintings of Perpetual Replay at Camden Art Centre

Mohammed Sami's exhibition 'The Point 0' at Camden Art Centre in London presents paintings that evoke a past on perpetual replay, drawing obliquely from the artist's biography. Born in Baghdad in 1984, Sami was forced as a youth to produce propaganda murals and portraits of Saddam Hussein for the Ba'ath regime. After fleeing Iraq in 2003 following the US-led invasion, he lived in a Swedish refugee camp before settling in London, where he earned an MFA from Goldsmiths. His works, such as 'Weeping Walls III' (2022), feature a nail piercing floral wallpaper, with a shadow like a clock hand, and show his handling of pigment with hazy diffusions and scrapings. People are absent; instead, empty garments, hushed interiors, and furniture retain the warmth of departed bodies. 'Ten Siblings' (2021) depicts a stack of mattresses, evoking sleep as the cousin of death. 'Study of Guts' (2022) suggests sandbags, military shirts, or spilled intestines. 'Electric Issues' (2022) shows a telephone pylon casting a spider-like shadow, hinting at torture and Saddam's 'spider hole'. The largest work, 'One Thousand and One Nights' (2022), is a nocturnal landscape with white lights that could be an aurora or bomb explosions. The exhibition runs through 28 May.