As a young child in Iraq, the painter Mohammed Sami was recruited based on exceptional artistic talent to produce propagandistic images of Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athist regime. Sami had lived in Baghdad through the Iran-Iraq conflict, the Gulf War and US invasion before immigrating as a refugee to Sweden at the age of 23. Following study in Belfast and then completing an MA at Goldsmiths in London, Sami has since produced haunting images surrounding his childhood that avoid direct depictions of violence or even the presence of figures, and instead rely on quieter aspects around the chaos. In Ashfall I (2022), Sami drafts a landscape of traditional Iraqi architecture made of stone or concrete under a darkened sky. The extreme side lighting and specks in the air suggest the moment after an explosion or during a fire, as light ash diffuses from a distance. Devoid of figures or any sense of movement typical of news images coming from the Gulf War, Sami’s reclaims the power of representation through his recollections and underscores the complicated process of memory through conflict.