Salah Elmur
"Domestic Cat", 2024
Acrylic on paper
19 ½ x 27 ½ inches (49.8 x 69.9 cm)
Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim

Selected by Lauren Cornell

Salah Elmur's (b. 1966, Khartoum; lives and works in Cairo) artistic journey is deeply entwined with Sudanese cultural heritage, resonating with the pioneering spirit of the Khartoum School and modernist movements within African and Arab diasporas. Inspired by his upbringing near the Blue Nile in Khartoum, Elmur's work reflects the rich history of Sudanese culture. His fascination with photography, nurtured in his father's studio, infuses his paintings with the nostalgia of 1960s Sudanese portrait photography. His compositions blend figurative abstraction, and familial themes, reflecting the multiplicities within Sudanese life. Emerging from the socio-political landscape of 1960s and 70s Sudan, his artistic repertoire serves as a testament to the era's post-colonial ethos, harmonizing with geometric post-modernist aesthetics to immortalize Sudanese heritage and shape a multifaceted visual identity that echoes through time.

His work finds a home in esteemed collections worldwide, such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C, USA; MoMA, New York, USA; Le Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, USA; Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa; the Sharjah Art Museum, UAE; The Gandur Foundation for Art, Geneva, Switzerland; the Museum of African Contemporary Art, Al Maaden, Marrakech, Morocco and the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, USA.

The artist's forthcoming solo exhibition will open in February 2025 at Mariane Ibrahim, Mexico City.