Light Beyond Memory: A Conversation with Mohamed Taha
Mohamed Taha is a Sudanese digital artist whose work focuses on the quiet, often overlooked moments of everyday life. Through figurative compositions, atmospheric colour and cinematic lighting, he transforms ordinary encounters into reflections on memory, identity and human experience.
Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Sudan, Mohamed developed an early awareness of how place can shape a person's sense of belonging. Entirely self-taught, he initially worked as a traditional artist before turning to digital painting, where he found new possibilities for constructing imagined spaces and manipulating colour, light and atmosphere.
His artistic practice has also evolved alongside the conflict and displacement in Sudan. Rather than focusing solely on images of destruction, Mohamed seeks to preserve another side of Sudanese life: its people, traditions, ordinary routines and fleeting moments of human connection. His paintings become a form of visual memory, documenting people who might otherwise remain absent from the historical record.
Alongside his artistic practice, Mohamed studies Psychology and French Language at the University of Khartoum. His interest in psychology further informs his sensitivity to the unspoken emotions contained in gestures, expressions and moments of stillness.
In this conversation, Mohamed speaks about memory and nostalgia, the role of colour and light, the influence of psychology and cinema, and his desire to create a visual record of ordinary Sudanese people. He also reflects on how war has changed his relationship with painting and why beauty remains essential to his artistic practice.
Your paintings capture ordinary moments with extraordinary emotional depth. What first made you realise that everyday life could become the subject of your art?
The lack of representational Sudanese art that talks about everyday life, during or before the war, made me take the step of capturing these moments that we see every day, ordinary people.
Your work feels less like documentation and more like memory. What is the difference between painting what you see and painting what you remember?
To me, the current life I live is a mixture of observation and memory, or nostalgia for the past life I had before the war. That reflects vividly in my work.
Colour plays a remarkable role in your paintings. Even when your subjects are shaped by uncertainty, your palette often feels luminous and hopeful. What emotions are you searching for through colour?
The purple and pink hues in most of my paintings come from my painting process. They give this warm tone that I like to have in my paintings. It serves my vision and helps with the aesthetics.
You describe your compositions as balancing observation with emotion. How do you decide what to keep faithful to reality and what to transform through imagination?
I always like to keep my figures real, ordinary people, sometimes from my own life. Then I play with the composition of elements and put them in imaginary spaces, with the colours that I want depending on what emotions or aesthetics I want to convey.
You moved from Saudi Arabia to Sudan as a teenager. Looking back, how has living between different places shaped your understanding of home and belonging?
I moved as a teenager, and the move really shaped who I currently am. Living in such contrasting societies, being a foreigner as a kid in Saudi Arabia made me more observant and encouraged me to try to fit within society. That made me experience the change in my place within society when I came here and immediately became a part of it.
Many of your figures appear quiet, almost suspended in time. What attracts you to these moments of stillness?
I am, by nature, an observant person, and these moments attract me because of how small and insignificant they are. That's where I see the souls and dreams of people.
Light seems to have its own presence in your paintings. Do you think of light as an element of composition, or as a symbol carrying emotional meaning?
Of course, light and shadow help so much with capturing emotions. Lighting is employed in master paintings that I've studied, like those of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, and also in film, from which I get a lot of inspiration.
Your background includes studying psychology alongside your artistic practice. Has psychology influenced the way you observe people and build emotional narratives in your work?
Psychology opened a window for me to see another dimension of people in their still moments. Emotions can be transmitted without words or sounds.
Since the conflict in Sudan began, your paintings have taken on another role, preserving fragments of a culture under threat. Did this transformation happen consciously, or did you only realise it while looking back at your work?
Painting, to me, was a way to cope in times of war and displacement, so this shift mainly happened naturally, in an attempt to preserve the life that was taken from us and to show the day-to-day life that I go through, with no agenda or filters.
Rather than focusing on destruction, your paintings often celebrate ordinary human moments. Why is it important for you to tell this side of Sudan's story?
We can find pictures of destruction in Sudan taken by NGOs everywhere, by people who don't live here or face the obstacles of life that we do. I try to show the more ordinary face that is not usually talked about when we say "Sudan".
We do need to talk more about Sudan, but there are many different faces other than just death and destruction.
Digital painting gives you complete freedom over colour, atmosphere and composition. What does working digitally allow you to express that traditional painting might not?
I actually started as a traditional artist, and I enjoy it much more than digital. Economic considerations made me transition to digital, as it requires a one-time payment rather than buying materials and supplies every time.
Many viewers who have never visited Sudan still feel emotionally connected to your work. What do you think makes personal memories become universal experiences?
Emotions like grief, longing and moments of waiting are global experiences, not tied to culture or geography. They can be found in the most primal humans just as much as they are found in us today.
Looking at your paintings, one feels both beauty and melancholy existing together. Is that emotional balance something you consciously pursue?
Beauty is an essential part of art, in my opinion. I can't make art if it's not aesthetically pleasing to me, so it comes as a mixture with other emotions and states.
If someone encounters your work fifty years from now, what do you hope they will understand about Sudan that photographs or history books may never fully convey?
I'd like my art to be a historical record of regular and ordinary Sudanese people, not presidents, politicians or public figures, just people that we'd see every day in this period of time.
As your artistic language continues to evolve, what new questions are you hoping to explore through your paintings?
I'd like to explore diversity and traditions, territories that I haven't painted much about, and I'd like to include more abstract elements, since my art is very representational.
If one of your paintings could speak directly to its future collector, what do you think it would say?
My paintings speak to the soul and mind of any observer. I would like my paintings to have a direct conversation about the emotion, scenario and personal experience of the observer. Because, as I said earlier, it's all based on universal experiences and emotions. They have probably been in that place, or will be in that place, themselves.
Closing Thoughts
For Mohamed Taha, painting is a way of paying attention. His subjects are not historical figures or public events, but ordinary people caught in quiet moments, living their everyday lives. It is precisely in these seemingly insignificant moments that he finds what he calls the souls and dreams of people.
His work occupies an interesting space between observation and imagination. The figures remain rooted in reality, while colour, light and composition transform their surroundings into atmospheric spaces shaped by memory and emotion. His luminous pinks, purples and blues create a visual language in which beauty and melancholy can exist simultaneously.
The experience of war and displacement has given this practice an additional purpose. Painting became a way for Mohamed to cope, but also a way to preserve a life that was changing around him. Rather than allowing Sudan to be represented solely through images of destruction, he chooses to record its quieter face: its people, their routines, their gestures and the moments that make up ordinary life.
In this sense, his digital paintings become more than contemporary images. They are fragments of memory and potential records of a particular time, centred not on presidents or politicians, but on people who might otherwise disappear from the historical narrative.
As Mohamed looks towards the future, he hopes to explore greater diversity and traditions within Sudan while introducing more abstract elements into his predominantly representational practice. Yet his central concern remains unchanged: to create images that allow viewers to recognise something of themselves in the experiences of others.
Perhaps this is where the lasting power of his work lies. A painting may begin with a particular place, a particular person or a particular memory, but the emotions it carries - grief, longing, waiting, belonging and hope - do not belong to one country or one generation. They belong to all of us.
Written by Eva Ellwood
Mohamed Taha — Artist at Coral Bridge Gallery
