Salim Green

Salim Green’s painting practice puts in perspective concepts of visibility, concealment, and opacity. He looks to consider social perceptions of blackness, navigating built environments and strategies for that very navigation through different forms of abstraction. In his approach, Green often refers to the “Dark Forest Theory,” a speculative idea that interplanetary civilizations hide from each other out of self-preservation, and in order to prevent conflict over resources. Using this concept as a model for relational politics and black experience, Green’s work assumes the metaphorical position of hiding—from surveillance, the anxieties of others, domination, the state, overreaching publicity or visibility. In an attempt to find the right balance between texture, color, and composition, his latest series of paintings brings together small and large formats assembled in free forms. The works combine wool felt and found material rather than traditional canvas, and the physicality of the artist’s practice is revealed through his actions of scraping, pouring, and endless layering.

Salim Green (b. 1996, Middletown, CT) earned a BA from Wesleyan University in 2020 and an MFA from the University of California Los Angeles in 2024. Green’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; Room 3557, Los Angeles; Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Middletown; SculptureCenter, New York; Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago; Fábrica, Mexico City. His work is included in the collections of the Getty Research Institute, The Underground Museum and the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University. He lives and works in Los Angeles.