Amma Baad

SAUDI ARABIA

“Amma baad is presence which occurs in the future, it occupies a space in reality through a presence that precedes it”

Nasser El Salem

In his first solo exhibition in the UK, Saudi artist Nasser Al Salem uses his expanded approach to calligraphy to present a new series of works exploring the relationship between language, time and space.

Through a series of sculptural objects and works on paper, Al Salem contemplates the interesting and hard-to-translate phrase ‘amma baad’ – an expression found in formal Arabic correspondence between the initial greetings and the main body of text. Playing with scale and materials, the artist takes a philosophical approach to this phrase, considering the transitional space it occupies in the present, and its relation to what precedes and follows, inviting us to re-consider our own perception of time and space.

Nasser Al Salem (b. 1984, Mecca) lives and work in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Salem was an artist-in-residence at Delfina Foundation in 2014 and 2018.

Exhibition curated by Maya El Khalil.