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Memory Drum, presents a series of new paintings and sculptures by Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, produced since March 2020 in isolation in his Khorfakkan studio, which forced him to go deeper into his innate knowledge - his "drum memory". Two new bodies of work have emerged from Ibrahim's six months of seclusion: a group of large paintings (his Boulevard and Flower series); and a group of sculptures that are either vaguely anthropomorphic, or else resemble toys from earliest stages of childhood. Both bodies of work are seen through a minimalist lens and alternate between brightly-coloured and neutral hues.
Scroll down for a specially comissioned interview with Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim by Maya Allison (Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery and Chief Curator of NYUAD), curator for his upcoming solo presentation for the National Pavilion UAE at the 59th Venice Biannale in 2022.
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'When I first encountered a work by Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, its playful, abstract-yet-organic form electrified my curatorial senses.' Maya Allison, Executive Director and Chief Curator of The NYUAD Art Gallery
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'I am inspired by the coasts, sierras and mountain lights of my home in Khor Fakkan, where my family has lived for generations. Here in the UAE we are surrounded by diverse and ancient landscapes as well as advanced urbanization. This tension is one of the concepts I explore in my work through organic materials, by allowing my subconscious to find the forms.'
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In psychology, Memory Drum is a theory that unconscious neural patterns acquired from past experience are stored in the central nervous system within a memory storage organ, analogous to the drum used to store music in the old-fashioned roll pianos. It also refers to the “drum memory” of early computers, a magnetic storage device. Ibrahim relates it to the theory of innateness in developmental psychology - that children have an innate knowledge. This innate knowledge for the artist is more important than that learnt later on throughout the course of life. Most people lose touch with it through learned behaviours, but Ibrahim is constantly aware of it and this underlines his instictive and automatic creative process.
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'Ibrahim's work shares its playful tactility with the sculptures of Franz West, a fellow master of papier mâché...The artist derives those colours, in turn, from the sunsets the mountains block from his view. Unable to see the sun sink below the horizon, he has long imagined brighttones of fuchsia and marigold,' Evan Moffitt, Frieze
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Watch Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim in conversation with Maya Allison (Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery and Chief Curator of NYUAD) curator for his upcoming solo presentation for the National Pavilion UAE at the 59th Venice Biannale in 2022.
They discuss the processes behind Ibrahim's paintings and sculptures as seen in Memory Drum.
