Opening on March 6th was the first solo show by filmmaker and multimedia artist Sam Fayed. Titled Residue and curated by Clayton Calvert, the newest exhibit takes place in the newly opened Turnbull Gallery at The Turnbull Townhouse on 57th Street in Uptown Manhattan. 

“What the exhibit is all about is essentially taking really simple moments and creating narratives out of them,” the artist shared. “The inspiration behind this is really the fact that we’re so fucking (excuse my language) bombarded by stimuli, media pop culture, like Instagram, social media… So I went back to what I really love, which is analog photography, and I just looked at thousands of slides, took original elements that I’ve shot and basically created scenes out them.”

For his solo show, the Fayed sourced a bunch of film photographs from deadstock lots and Craigslist and started to weave them into a different narrative — synthesizing sculptural elements, constructions of flat and metallic Chromogenic color prints, found objects and text-driven messaging. Neon tubes were used in some of the works on display: a residue of Sam’s past when he traveled and performed as a rock band musician back in the day.

“The story is really about leaving a mark on a point in time that seems really simple and creating a narrative around that,” he explained. “So you’re literally living, subconsciously, with this residue of some sort of creation.”

Grounded in Fayed’s experience being born in mid-eighties England and living in Los Angeles and New York since the age of six, the show explores what being a middle child in a multicultural, patriarchal family unit is like and the way it impacts one’s perception and world view. Albeit tackling a pretty deep and serious topic, the artist hopes the viewers can also catch a few giggles while walking through the exhibit.

“From this particular series, it’s just to take away some form of comic relief from what our current climate is,” the artist said. “Not to get too political, but I just feel like we’re living in really crazy times where we don’t even know if we’re going to be talking next week. So if my job can create a story and have someone like look at a picture and a mixed-media form and be like, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s clever, that’s funny, that’s a story’ — that’s all I care about.”