Elevator wall 🛗
Depicting an elevator wall the graphite drawing highlight’s the (un)conscious behaviors that beget the layered scratches and marks in an oft-overlooked space. The scratches on the metal sheet flow rhythmically — routed in the idea of the abstract — with gestures of continuous motion reminiscent of American artist Cy Twombly’s Blackboard series. Khalid replicates this motion, leaving scratches on the graphites surface while questioning narratives of life-imitates-art to art-imitates-life.
graphite on paper mounted on foam board, scratches
Flaccid 🌴
“Though a ubiquitous feature of green infrastructure across Gulf cities, the date palm’s cultivation, outside of natural oases, requires large amounts of water. Mohamed Khalid’s Flaccid (2020) addresses the hidden ecological cost of growing this de facto national plant by presenting it not as a luxuriant growth but as a series desiccated frond-less stumps. His ceramic sculptures double as kitsch souvenirs—some merely decorative tchotchkes, others functional objects like candelabras and incense burners—suggesting that consumer capitalism may ultimately lie at the root of their loss of vitality.” - Murtaza Vali
Various Mediums
Enoc Rock 🪨
Enoc Rock is a miniature ceramic replica of a boulder found outside a local gas station. The letters ‘ENOC’ were painted onto the boulder’s surface by employees of the gas station, transforming it into a pseudo-landmark. The work serves as a souvenir that puts into focus Dubai's instrumentalization of its landscape and over-branded aesthetic.
Underglazed Stoneware, Artist postcard, Enoc packaging
Failures 🧾
Failures gestures on to two cogs in society, the human and the machine. Both designed to conform to some role based on being at service to others, is now met at a moment where the machine failed at its only duty — to produce legible receipts highlighting mall visitors parking location — and now the human decided to become an artist that draw receipts. Framed are two gestures of some type of a failure and eventually this conceptualized artwork will fail once more as the receipt will start to fade away.
Found object, Dubai Mall parking receipt machine
(CP1 - PARK TM-003), graphite on paper, graphite on passepartout
