Mohammad Omar Khalil
Claude Lemand.
Né au Soudan en 1936, Mohammad Omar Khalil complète sa formation en Italie et s’établit à New York en 1967. Il est reconnu par ses pairs, les critiques et les amateurs comme l’un des plus grands maîtres de la gravure américaine contemporaine. Virtuose et modeste, généreux et pédagogue, il continue à enseigner les diverses techniques de la gravure et à former les nouvelles générations d’artistes de New York, capitale cosmopolite de l’art. Depuis peu, il commence à montrer l’autre facette de sa créativité : ses peintures sur toile et sur bois, dans lesquelles l’art contemporain new-yorkais s’enrichit de l’apport africain et arabe.
Pour sa première exposition personnelle dans notre galerie, l’artiste a voulu présenter au public européen un ensemble magistral de douze grandes aquarelles récentes, synthèse de son art et de ses souvenirs, avec un clin d’œil à Saison de la Migration vers le Nord, titre du roman de l’écrivain soudanais Tayyeb Saleh, publié en 1967, l’année de l’arrivée de M. O. Khalil à New York." (Claude Lemand)
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Mohammad Omar Khalil.
In these paintings, I concentrated on the happy times in Mustafa Said’s life and not his sad ordeal. I was not trying to illustrate or translate the story, but rather treat it as a work of art - free and spontaneous, evolving through different stages. There isn’t one way of working and creating and every artist has his or her own way to create. Every step that you take adds to your knowledge, solidifies your base and enriches your vocabulary. In my own art, I am interested in limitations and not expansions - learning when an art work is finished and not overworked by expanding beyond the limits of necessity.
These large watercolours were inspired by the book Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, one of the most beautiful books written in Arabic. It’s daring and honest dealing with sexual matters and frank depiction of life in Sudanese village were ground-breaking at the time it was published. The controversy it stirred in the Sudan was similar to the receptions that Ulysses, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn received in the United States. It portrayed things that are known to everybody, but generally never dealt with in books.”
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Collections publiques
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Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar.
Musée, Institut du monde arabe, Paris + Donation Claude & France Lemand 2018.
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