Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim
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Floor Sweeping / Cleaning Up My Art (2024-ongoing)
110 x 75 cm (each, approx.)Pigment, paper
This work emerges from an evolving dialogue with its predecessor, Floor Sweeping. An accidental smudge on a separate piece became the catalyst for sweeping directly onto the paper. What began as a spontaneous act unfolded into a meditative process, resonating with my ongoing inquiries into the nature of my practice. These pieces inhabit a liminal space between drawing and painting, where the tools and materials are stripped back to their origins: a brush that predates the painter’s brush, paper preceding canvas, and raw pigments before they become paint.
This return to elemental forms allowed me to engage with mark-making unbound by traditional frameworks. The sweeping motion—both an act of creation and erasure—became a metaphorical gesture, a ritual of clearing, reordering, and confronting the residue of past work. In this process, I wasn’t merely making marks; I was, in a sense, cleaning up my art, confronting the sediment of my own practice to create space for new beginnings.
Selected work from the series