Sana’a Viewfinders: A visual response to Patterns Do Furnish a Life, a solo exhibition by Mohammed Murshed at SATOR Projects, Portland, Oregon
By Lindsay Costello
In Patterns Do Furnish a Life, on view until December 5 at SATOR Projects in Portland, Yemeni American artist Mohammed Murshed shares his perspective on patriarchal systems, traditional religious symbolism, and the process of trauma healing through textile, painting, video, and other mediums. Curated by Ashley Gifford and Kyle Cohlmia, the works in the exhibition draw on conventional decorative Yemeni motifs and sacred patterning to create a felt sense of memory, grief, oppression, and shared humanity. The impact is profound to the viewer, but also appears deeply personal to Murshed.
For this project, I used stock imagery of the distinctive traditional architecture in Sana’a, an ancient city and sociocultural epicenter in Yemen. I created cardstock “viewfinders” through which my own small neighborhood came into focus. In this process, I aimed to create relationships between the distant and the intimate through a language of light and texture. By drawing on a traditional Yemeni aesthetic, I endeavored to honor Murshed’s own visual blending of conventional Yemeni motifs and reflections on his home.
Imagery from Patterns Do Furnish a Life, courtesy SATOR Projects / Ashley Gifford: