What Remains - Ahlam Ahmadi

Goldsmiths, University of London
Soft pastel, oil pastel and graphite on paper
 
What Remains explores the contemporary S.W.A.N.A. (Southwest Asia and North Africa) experience through the figure of a young man, focusing on diasporic male youth at the threshold between adolescence and early adulthood. This large-scale work on paper, made with soft pastel, oil pastel, and graphite, uses scale and materiality to allow for layered, bodily, and gestural mark-making.
The drawing resists a fixed sense of place, positioning the figure within a non-specific space. Through the accumulation and removal of pigment, the work considers how identity is shaped through memory and inherited histories. Dense passages of pastel sit alongside sparse, exposed areas of paper, whilst repeated erasure allows traces of earlier marks to remain visible. These gestures emphasise the physicality of drawing and create a play between presence, erasure, and what is yet to emerge.