A reflection carries the shape of something beyond itself. A tree appears again in the water, recognisable yet changed. What we see belongs neither entirely to the tree nor to the water, but takes shape between them.
Ayan Farah’s paintings develop through similar relations. Pigments, materials and processes recur across works of different scales and formats. Changes in surface, scale and placement give each painting its own character, while details and forms reappear across the exhibition.
The materials carry histories of their own. Clay gathered in northern Somalia, indigo and pigments made from collected seashells bring different places into the paintings. Through grinding, washing, stitching and painting, earth becomes pigment, shells become powder and plant matter yields dye. These processes alter the materials without erasing their origins.
Rather than viewing each work as being in isolation, the exhibition draws attention to the connections through which works take form. Here, the work is both a sketch and a finished object, a reflection of itself. Farah’s use of natural pigments brings this perspective into the act of painting. Materials gathered in one place enter works made in another, carrying traces of their origins into new settings. The paintings do not represent landscapes so much as work with their physical substance, bringing different places and times into contact on the same surface.
This is also present in Farah’s contribution to the first National Pavilion of Somalia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Somali clay and pigments derived from shells collected in Scotland brought materials from distant places together. In Venice, the changing light altered how these colours and surfaces appeared throughout the day.
Across the exhibition, repetition creates neither a fixed series nor a single image. Each painting holds something of what has appeared before, while remaining subject to its own conditions. Like a reflection, it is at once recognisable and transformed.
