Al-Alamia Gallery hosted this week the 15th solo exhibition of paintings by Sudanese artist Awad Abu Salah. The artist, who is a member of the Sudan fine arts society, has been working in the Kingdom as an art instructor at the House of Artists in Jeddah for the past twelve years. He is also a contributing writer for the local newspapers.

Abu Salah has been exhibiting his works since 1982 and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Kuwait, Sudan and extensively throughout Saudi Arabia. He was also the recipient of the Sultana Exhibition Prize in 1990, and his work has been procured by the Museum of Abdul Raouf Khalil in Jeddah and the National Museum in Sudan.

His current exhibition titled "Flats from the ashes of memory" showcases work from his latest collection, which reflects largely upon emotions of the human condition. The collection, which is greatly influenced by colors, culture and elements of the African subcontinent, has been represented and delivered in abstract figuration — a style the artist has been practicing for the last three decades.

"All these paintings represent the remembrance I have of people. I am concerned with human beings and my paintings talk about their problems. We are at a stage where each one of us, regardless of who we are or where we come from, are facing all kinds of distresses. I'm not only speaking of the Arab Spring and the turmoil in the Middle East, but of the various conditions present everywhere in the world," he said.

"The future is something else. The past is dead. Just like fire, now is the moment. After the fire burns out, only the ashes remain - the past is like that. All of my memories from the past are ashes that are remembered and all my work comes from that memory," the artist said.

Abu Salah also shared his views on the emerging forms of conceptual art expression in the region that was first popularized in the West, and which more often than not serves visual and emotional experiences limited to the moment in time in which they are exhibited for artistic consumption.

"Art is that which has no expiry date. There is a trend now in which the value of art exists only in the concept and is valid only during the time we see it, without much regard for its aesthetic value. That is not art or the purpose of real art. Art is that which remains timeless," he said.