Working Times marks Salah Elmur’s second exhibition with Mariane Ibrahim and his first with the gallery in the United States. Bringing together a new series of paintings, the exhibition explores the figure of the worker in the vocational training centres and workshops of Sudan, places the artist has visited with admiration over the years. 

The representation of workers in art is rarely an inconsequential gesture. Throughout the history of modern painting, the worker has embodied individual dignity and the political aspirations of societies in transformation. For Elmur, the subject is also deeply personal. As in much of his work, painting becomes a means of revisiting the social and cultural landscapes of his native Sudan, tracing the occupations, gestures, and environments that have shaped everyday life. Although he no longer lives in the country, he returns regularly, gathering images and impressions that eventually find their way onto his canvases. 

The vocational training centres hold a particular place in Sudan’s modern history. Developed in the decades following independence in 1956, they formed part of a broader project of national development, intended to cultivate technical knowledge and a skilled workforce capable of sustaining the country’ industrial ambitions. Beyond their practical function, these institutions came to emblematize an aspiration toward economic autonomy and national sovereignty. Generations of workers passed through their workshops, acquiring skills, and contributing to the construction of a modern nation. 

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Image: Salah Elmur, Working Time, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.