Mohammed Sami

Mohammed Sami has generously produced this limited edition artwork, On Air, 2025, especially for Tate.

The limited edition takes Sami’s acrylic-on-linen painting of the same title from 2024 as a starting point. The painting is reproduced in high-quality digital pigment printing, and Sami has hand-painted an orange explosion inside the lightbulb on each print.

Sami has described his works as allegorical representations that stand in opposition to images of conflict and violence. On Air exemplifies the way in which Sami’s works challenge stereotypical images of suffering and provide a different perspective of conflict and its effects through a slow, personal reading. Informed by his own biography, his work aims to evoke a more widespread sense of collective social and cultural loss. The painting, On Air, 2024, is in the artist’s personal collection and is on display as part of The Turner Prize 2025 exhibition from 27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026 at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford.

Each artwork is signed and numbered by the artist on the front. Prices of the artwork are liable to change. As a limited edition sells out, prices of the artwork are subject to increase and the price will be clearly indicated.

• Artist Mohammed Sami
• Artwork On Air
• Dimensions 61 x 50 cm
• Material Digital pigment print with hand-painted detail in acrylic paint on Somerset paper
• Edition Limited edition of 31, minus edition number 11, signed and numbered on the front
• Date of work 2025

Mohammed Sami (b. Baghdad, Iraq, 1984) creates poignant and evocative paintings which explore memory and its vulnerability to time. Sami mines personal experiences from his formative years in Iraq to ground his work, but by embracing ambiguity, he creates a sense of universal familiarity. Negotiating the past through painting, he harnesses the metaphorical potential of different mark-making techniques to interrupt a straightforward narrative reading. Blurred objects often appear as if they are coming apart or moving across the canvas itself, suggesting gaps or slippage of memory. Sami’s compositions unfurl as cryptic vignettes of fragmented scenes, excavated from the past.

Solo exhibitions have been held at KM21, The Hague (2025); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2025); Fondazione Sandretto re Rebaudengo, Turin (2024); Camden Art Centre, London (2023); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2023); Luhring Augustine, New York (2023); and Modern Art, London (2022). His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Le monde comme il va / The World As It Goes, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris (2024); the 58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2022-23); The London Open 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Aichi Triennale, Aichi Arts Center, Nagoya (2022); Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London (2021); Stilla liv (Still life), Gallery Magnus Karlsson, Gotland, Sweden (2021); and The Sea is the Limit, York Art Gallery, UK and Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Doha, Qatar (2018-19).

Sami’s work can be found in permanent collections around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate, London, UK; The Government Art Collection, London, UK; and The Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Baghdad, Iraq. Sami has been nominated for the Turner Prize 2025 for his solo show, After the Storm, which was on view at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK in 2024. Sami lives and works in London, UK.