14/08/2026
“𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐨 𝐇𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐚” 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐝 𝐒𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐟
During my stay in Nairobi, I discovered a wonderful Sudanese painter who was holding a solo exhibition at the Goethe-Institut!
“Indigo Hypoxia is conceived as an immersive solo exhibition a space that brings together painting, textile installation, and live performance. It presents a series of presences: alienated blue figures existing within a purple atmosphere.
The exhibition explores an internal psychological state shaped by a sense of spatial and emotional void. This is not a literal room, but a mental enclosure in which the figures are suspended-caught between withdrawal and exposure, fragility and weight. They do not simply occupy the space; they embody it.
The central question of the exhibition emerges through this tension: what does it mean to feel internally blue while existing within a purple exterior?
The purple functions as more than a background. It becomes a field, a temperature, a psychological condition-something felt rather than clearly defined. Within it, the blue figures drift without clear intention, moving through gestures that resist repetition or resolution.
Recurring black-and-white dotted patterns appear throughout the works as condensed emotional matter. They accumulate like traces of memory and grief-sometimes clinging to the figures, sometimes spilling into space, sometimes interrupting the body itself.
The works move between tension and stillness. Figures appear blurred, heavy, or partially dissolved, held in suspension as if caught within a moment of inward collapse. In this way, purple becomes a theatre of the mind, while blue remains a state of being within it.”
Artist statement
“My work is an instinctive conversation between myself, the materials, and the moment. I do not plan what I will paint or sculpt-the brush moves first, the colors arrive on their own, and I follow. This process allows me to discover what the work wants to be, rather than forcing it into a predetermined form.
I am drawn to materials that carry a sense of touch and memory: fabric, thread, cotton, and metal. These materials become dolls, abstract forms, or figures caught between chaos and stillness. I try to capture what the eyes cannot say, but what the spirit leaves behind.
Displacement, loss, and transformation are not just subjects in my work-they are part of my lived experience. Losing my studio and artworks in Sudan pushed me to create with whatever was available, reaffirming that art can grow from scarcity.
I avoid direct slogans and politics, not out of indifference, but because I want the work to speak through form, texture, and silence. For me, art is not about telling a fixed story; it is about opening a space where the viewer's own story can emerge.”
Congratulations dear artist!
EtendArt Vision
Goethe-Institut Nairobi
