The Alchemy Of Sadness, Zayn Qahtani, Chrome gilt polylactide, variegated metal sheets, abalone shell, bahraini date palm paper, graphite, acrylic, plaster, 2025
Twilight Contemporary is thrilled to present 'Ancient Memories,' a group exhibition featuring the work of Polina Osipova, Rike Droescher and Zayn Qahtani. Each of the artists in Ancient Memories work with a heightened attention to materiality. In their practices, they each harness unorthodox materials and techniques to create mysterious, encrypted objects that seem to convey a secret, hallowed truth that resists quick or easy deciphering. Like religious effigies, talismans or sacred charms, the pieces on display in 'Ancient Memories' point to the cultivation of a more personal, intimate relation with the spiritual world and inspire a hushed sense of reverence in the viewer.
Drawing from the craft expertise of her female ancestors, Osipova creates intricate textile works in which the past and the present overlap and are intimately interwoven. Each of Osipova’s works exists as an interrogation of the scattered fragments of both personal and shared cultural memory rooted in her Indigenous Chuvash heritage with its specific legends and mythology. Throughout her work, Osipova manipulates archival images from old family photo albums and reconstitutes them into new formations, stitching them together to create a patchwork of different domestic situations and historical moments. In the creation of these new arrangements, Osipova purposefully obfuscates the specific contexts of each image and instead invites the viewer to interpret them by actively forging brand new associations and weaving together their own stories.
Working across drawing, painting and sculpture, Zayn Qahtani’s works appear much, much older than they actually are. When encountering one of Qahtani’s works in the gallery, one would be forgiven for thinking that it might be some sort of devotional amulet unearthed from an unknown ancient civilisation. This arcane strangeness is due, in large part, to Qahtani’s skilful use of organic, found materials like crystals, soils, seashells and pigments derived from plants. These materials, with their unique and inimitable vividness of hue, give her work a specific lustre and shining iridescence. Assembled into sublime, glittering constellations that seem to defy reality, Qahtani’s sculptures appear to us like some shimmering vision from a long forgotten, sunken dream.
In her new works, Rike Droescher examines the object of the tree branch as a vestige of humanity’s primal connection to the earth. Inspired by Elias Cannetti’s text Crowds and Power, Droescher interrogates the capacity of the human hand for creation and invention as well as destruction and negation. Here, Droescher identifies the tree branch as one of the earliest, original vessels of the human ability to invest previously dead, inert objects with new, powerful potential. In the human hand, the tree branch is rendered a tool, a magic wand and ultimately a weapon that can be used to wield immense power over others. However, Droescher subverts the tree branch’s violent connotation by recreating it meticulously in ceramic; thus focusing on the human hand’s capacity for patience and care. Droescher’s concern with the slower, gentler and crucially more productive aspects of human nature is consolidated in the hand embroidered labels that appear stitched into the very sculptures themselves. These labels, taken from Droescher’s own clothes, carry an iota of her own personal history as they previously moved with her through time and physical space. By attaching these labels to the ceramic tree branch, with all its complex, ancient connotations, Droescher implicates her individual life in the grander arc of all human history.
Together, these artists use materials to create sacred charm-like sculptures that point to the existence of lost, subterranean worlds of ancient rituals and traditions beyond the bounds of our immediate visual reality. These works reward a quieter, more meditative approach to viewing. It is as if only those who first tune themselves to each work’s individual resonance is afforded the possibility to fully reach in and grasp its submerged, hidden world.
Words by Jamie Hope.
Cornucopia, Rike Droescher, Glazed ceramic, embroidery on clothing label, 53 x 23 x 5 cm, 2026
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST:
Thank you!
For all sales enquires : enquiries@twilightcontemporary.com
Copyright 2026 © Twilight Contemporary Ltd.
