Artist in profile: Mohammed Sami
'There's beauty in the question.'
Published: September 21, 2025
Turner Prize 2025 nominee Mohammed Sami uses metaphor and ambiguity to create paintings about memory and conflict.
Learn more about Sami and his work on this page – and plan your visit to the Turner Prize 2025.
Mohammed Sami is nominated for his solo exhibition After the Storm at Blenheim Palace.
For his Turner Prize presentation, Sami brings together paintings he created for this exhibition at Blenheim Palace. Built in the 18th century to reward the military triumphs of the first Duke of Marlborough, the palace is adorned with art that can be seen as glorifying warfare and power – a viewpoint challenged by Sami’s paintings.
Sami uses metaphor and ambiguity to create paintings about memory and conflict. Devoid of people, his works take the form of landscapes and still-lifes. These scenes might appear serene or without a narrative, but closer viewing reveals clues that hint toward more complex meanings.
Watch the video below to learn more about Mohammed Sami and his inspiration.
Mohammed Sami's inspiration
The Turner Prize 2025 nominated artists have selected literature or music to share that are important them or inspired the works on view
Check out Mohammed Sami’s reading list below.
Texts
- Emil Cioran – On the Heights of Despair
- Emil Cioran – The Temptation to Exist
- Emil Cioran – The Trouble with Being Born
- Arthur Schopenhauer – On Death and its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Being
- Arthur Schopenhauer – On the Vanity of Existence
- Arthur Schopenhauer – The World as Will and Representation
