Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to announce its participation at the 2022 edition of The Armory Show with a solo presentation by Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim (b. 1962, UAE). Our presentation provides a glimpse into Ibrahim’s practice, comprising recent paintings, papier-mâché and collage works, against the backdrop of an immersive installation of his seminal Lines drawings.
For The Armory Show, Ibrahim recreates his immersive installation, originally presented as part of a group exhibition at the Kunstcentrum Sittard in the Netherlands in 1995 – his debut in Europe. Black typographic marks on paper line the walls, from floor to ceiling, filling the entire space. Ibrahim’s fascination with the line traces back to his early childhood memories of markings on the gate walls of homes in his town. Single lines were drawn in charcoal to indicate the number of water bottles delivered. Leaving an imprint on his memory, these repeated lines – some reminiscent of ancient scripts, road marks or city skylines - have become the backbone of Ibrahim’s practice.
This runs concurrently with the artist’s major installation for The National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates at the 59th Venice Biennale - Between Sunrise and Sunset – a hall-filling piece comprising 128 abstract and organic elements in his signature medium of papier-maché.
