What: An Anniversary
Where: Gallery 1957, Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast & Galleria Mall, PMB 66 — Ministries, Gamel Abdul Nasser Avenue Ridge — Accra, Ghana
When: 30 September - 6 November, 2021
Via Gallery 1957:
Gallery 1957, is pleased to present a new body of work by Salah Elmur (Sudanese, b. 1966) entitled “An Anniversary.” In his first solo exhibition at the Gallery and in Accra, Ghana - Elmur depicts various days of celebration inspired by his personal collection of vintage portrait photographs.
Salah Elmur’s work is composed of a fertile visual vocabulary that draws on his social and cultural heritage. He draws on his observations of life and memories of his childhood and youth for the scenes, situations and impressions that he depicts in his work. Heavy symbolism, a tendency towards vivid colour combinations, and distortion of natural figures and proportions are some of the markers of Elmur’s painting.
Inspired by the many photographs he has collected from his family’s photography studio, Elmur’s paintings often emulate formal portrait settings with additional elements that complement but also unsettle the mood in his paintings. Plants and animals share the frame with the human subjects, limbs are shortened and proportions are distorted, altering the relationships between various objects and figures in the frame.
All these elements are combined in a somewhat surrealistic swirl of memory, and the resulting paintings are tender, intimate vignettes of human relationships, the rituals and poetry of daily life and folklore.
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