Leila Heller Gallery presents Cncve (Concave), the new solo exhibition by Saudi artist Sultan Bin Fahad, opening in New York and later in Dubai. The exhibition explores the fragile balance between historical memory and possible futures, inviting viewers to reflect on the cyclical nature of history and the ephemeral solidity of our perceptions of the past. Through portraits that reconfigure existing figures and images, Bin Fahad proposes a dialogue between retrospection and contemporaneity. His works bring forth alternative scenarios - what if an assassination had failed, and what if the voices of the anonymous had been heard - encouraging critical thought about the impermanence of time and the invisible impact of forgotten stories. The very title of the exhibition, Cncve, evokes a hollow form, which both contains and reshapes matter. It is a metaphor for his creative process: sculpting the past to project it into the future, rethinking history through a contemporary lens that amplifies its implications and questions its validity. Sultan Bin Fahad, born in Riyadh in 1971, works across abstract painting, sculpture, and installation. His practice draws on Saudi spirituality and material culture, reinterpreted in a contemporary key and in dialogue with symbols and narratives rooted in Islamic art. His work, rich in symbolic references, is animated by elements such as repetition, sound, and movement. The exhibition continues the international vocation of the gallery, which since 1982 has promoted contemporary artists from the Western world, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. Bin Fahad’s works ideally join those of artists represented in major international museum collections, reinforcing the gallery’s cross-cultural perspective and its commitment to an open artistic dialogue.
