Salah Elmur and Mariane Ibrahim are featured in this week’s print issue of Kinfolk magazine, with both profiles written by Precious Adesina.
Mariane Ibrahim reflects on her journey from being discouraged from opening a gallery to becoming a leading figure in promoting African and Middle Eastern artists globally. Despite starting in Seattle—a city with little art market—she founded her gallery in 2012 and later expanded to Chicago, Paris, and Mexico City. Her upbringing across continents shaped her belief in a borderless, inclusive art world. Passionate about elevating underrepresented artists without tokenizing them, Ibrahim sees her work as a lifelong mission rather than a trend. “This isn’t a trend for me—it’s my life’s work. It was a mission—something I had to do. It wasn’t about being trendy or making a statement; it was just necessary,” she states.
In contrast, Sudanese artist Salah Elmur offers a quieter meditation on memory, place, and artistic inspiration. Working from his Cairo studio, Elmur draws on a personal archive of over 20,000 black-and-white photographs from across Africa and beyond. These images, rooted in a childhood discovery of his father’s photography collection, inform his paintings and connect past with present. As war prevents him from returning to Sudan, his art becomes a vessel for remembering what has been lost—home, identity, and everyday life now erased by conflict.
Together, these profiles trace two distinct yet intersecting paths—of preservation, representation, and the deep need to create and share art.
