CARBON 12 presents Garden of Murmurs, a solo exhibition by British-Iraqi artist Malik Thomas Jalil Kydd, on display until 23 August 2025. Bringing together textile, drawing, and painting, the show is a deeply sensorial and poetic meditation on identity, memory, intimacy, and cultural inheritance.
Garden of Murmurs showcases a series of large-scale silk panels that depict male figures rendered at what Kydd describes as “angel scale”: slightly larger than life, exuding a quiet monumentality. These figures emerge from abstracted landscapes and stand as witnesses to love, loss, and longing. Their presence evokes a spectrum of intimacies, from romantic connection to familial closeness and collective empathy.
Kydd’s choice of materials is integral to his storytelling. He uses raw silk and stains it with sage, natural dyes, pastel, charcoal, and linseed oil. This results in richly textured and aromatic surfaces that speak as much through scent and touch as through image. Stitching, layering, and gesture fuse into a visual language that is fragile and grounded, recalling the tactile nature of memory and the weight of inherited emotion.
The exhibited works carry subtle traces of Kydd’s Iraqi heritage and diasporic experience. Rather than illustrate cultural identity, the artist embeds it within the very fabric of the work: through process, material, and atmosphere.
About the artist
Malik Thomas Jalil Kydd (b. 1995, Kent, UK) divides his time between Amman (Jordan) and London (UK). His practice, which lies at the intersection of fine art and textile design, blends his multicultural experiences with a nuanced sensitivity to form and memory.
Kydd’s art revolves around the male figure, often moist-eyed and tender, depicted on hand-dyed raw silk, cotton, and wool. Drawing inspiration from calligraphy, woven textiles, and Mesopotamian reliefs, he creates richly textured allegories of emotional states and hidden encounters.
Kydd has taken part in prominent fairs such as CAN Art Ibiza (Spain, 2025), ZONAMACO Mexico (Mexico, 2025), the Dallas Art Fair (USA, 2025), Abu Dhabi Art Fair (2024), and the Salon by NADA & The Community (Paris, France, 2024). Earlier in 2025, he was an artist-in-residence in Forte dei Marmi (Italy).
To get more information about Garden of Murmurs, please visit the official web page of the exhibition.
In addition, you might be interested in exploring Time Heals, Just Not Quick Enough… at Efie Gallery and From Fragments to Coherence at Sevil Dolmaci Dubai.
