After the Storm
Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace

Marking a decade of Blenheim Art Foundation’s award-winning programme of contemporary art at the UNESCO World Heritage site, ‘After the Storm: Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace’, took place from 9 July – 6 October 2024.

For the exhibition, Mohammed Sami (b.1984, Baghdad) developed an entirely new body of work, building on recurring themes and imagery within his practice, as well as drawing inspiration from the history and collection of Blenheim Palace. Renowned for his evocative and multi-layered paintings, Sami weaves together belated memories shaped by his formative years, and subsequent personal history.

Through exploring retroactive memories, his paintings capture a world shaped not just by the weight of the past but also the present, creating scenarios that are often left to the viewer to conclude through their own experience and interpretation. As Sami has previously written ‘painting becomes the only medium to grasp what is not there in painting anymore’.

Sami’s paintings feature landscapes, interiors and more abstracted scenes, whilst always being devoid of the human figure. They blur the line between reality and artifice, conjuring the disquieting sensation of both presence and absence.

Blenheim Palace, a gift from Queen Anne to the First Duke of Marlborough in recognition of his triumph at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 and later the birthplace of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, stands as an architectural testament to military glory. Placed within the context of Blenheim Palace and its world-renowned collection of portraiture and narrative artworks, Sami’s enigmatic paintings challenge viewers to reconsider the didactic nature of these traditional genres.