For me, art not only evokes memories and contemplation of the loss of home but it also encounters the present and shapes the future. My work is the product of a rich heritage from my origins in Sudan, my training there and my recent diasporic experience.
Hussein Salim’s paintings are a dialogue between different cultures, and represent his strong feelings that art must be used as a tool to initiate dialogue.
Hussein left his home country of Sudan as a refugee, and his works awaken in us an appreciation of our differences and diverse reactions, but bring us back to the shared foundation of mankind. A sense of displacement and a longing to return to his country has influenced the nostalgia in his art.
His richly textured canvases employ an extravagant layering technique to create a dense impasto feel, using personal symbolism that is both ancient and contemporary.