Mohammed Sami was born in Baghdad in 1984, a time when Saddam Hussein had an iron grip on the city. In 2005, when Sami graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, the country was at war. Though he was granted asylum in Sweden two years later, Sami’s poignant paintings draw from dark memories. He often pictures empty rooms, or spaces that are inked with eerie shadows and other unsettling traces of human presence. As he once explained, “painting becomes the only medium to grasp what is not there in painting anymore.” This major solo show is part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Blenheim Art Foundation’s contemporary art program. —Elena Clavarino