About Omar Khouri
My work deals with the deconstruction of the complex social artifact of identity to reach for the common loneliness of the human condition that rather paradoxically connects us all. Through an intuitive trance-like "collaboration" with medium, where the paint is left to express its qualities as much as I do, my process has evolved into an almost shamanistic ritual where nature takes an equal part in the making of the final product. Wedging into the crack between abstraction and representation, my paintings tend towards a depoliticization and decontextualization of the image as identity signifier, breaking it apart to peer into the topographies and landscapes within.
BIOGRAPHY: Omar Khouri was born in London, but spent his childhood in Lebanon. In 2002, he graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston with a BFA in illustration. After spending a year in Los Angeles working in cinema and television, he returned to Beirut. In 2006, Omar founded Samandal Comics Magazine, the first experimental comics periodical in the Arab world. He is currently Samandal’s Editor-in-Chief and one of its many international contributing artists. In 2010, Omar's sociopolitical satire "Utopia" won Best Arabic Comic book at the Algerian International Comic Book Festival (FIBDA). Omar’s work spans many art forms including painting, comics, animation, theatre, film, and music. He lives and works between Beirut and London.
Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibitions
2016 Tensile Modulus, Sultan Gallery, Kuwait
2015 "Al-Roussoum", Makan Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2015 "61 Faces of Winter", Agial Art Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2012
In the Presence of the Artist, Orchard Windows Gallery, New York, USA.
2006
Untitled, Al Madina Theatre, Beirut, Lebanon.
2005
Recent Works, Xanadu, New York, USA.
2004
Portraits of Friends and Lovers, Zico House, Beirut, Lebanon.
Group exhibitions
2012
Illustration of History, International Comic-Salon, Erlangen, Germany
2010
Samandal Orginal Artwork, Dar, Beirut, Lebanon.
Lebanese Comics, Lucca Comics Festival, Lucca, Italy.
Samandal, Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Alger, Algiers, Algeria.
Comics of Lebanon, 5 Open Art Space, Sofia, Bulgaria.
2008
Samandal Launch, Express café, Beirut, Lebanon.
2006
Art and Wine, Tribeca Lofts, New York, USA.
