Mohammed Omar Khalil is a contemporary painter and print-maker whose work, spanning over fifty years, has influenced two generations of Middle East artists. He began his artistic training in Khartoum,...
Mohammed Omar Khalil is a contemporary painter and print-maker whose work, spanning over fifty years, has influenced two generations of Middle East artists. He began his artistic training in Khartoum, then later continued his studies in Italy, before settling in the U.S. Profoundly influenced by his travels throughout the Middle East and his study of art history in Italy, Khalil has brought to life a pioneering form of art, in which elements and patterns from tradition merge with pop art and fine prints.
Having lived in the diaspora since his education, Khalil’s artworks search for a dialogue between dissimilar cultures. His works, You Don’t Have to Be I and 1492 fuse photo and collage, ideas and objects and result in a clandestine order of color, shapes, and spaces.
Khalil’s work has been part of numerous solo and group exhibitions in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Americas. It is found in different public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, Grenoble Museum in France, the Jordanian National Museum and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. London’s Mosaic Rooms in 2020 hosted a survey of his work, Homeland Under My Nails: Mohammad Omar Khalil – Selected Prints (1964–Present). He taught, until recently, at the Parsons School of Design in the New School in New York City.