OMAR BEY (B.1973)
Born in Tunis in 1973, Omar Bey did a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts from 2011 to 2012 after graduating, in 1998, from the Institut des Beaux-Arts de Tunisie.
Omar Bey's works include painting, collage, and multimedia assemblage of found objects. He has developed an innovative mastery of materials that allows him to evoke surprise, humor, and contemplation in viewers. He explores and uses many media, mixing different materials that often seem to oppose each other to ultimately form a "balanced" work through strong contrasts. The artist moves from one technique to another without worrying about the idea of virtuosity, creating a contrast not only regarding materials but also in the concept. Free and airy birds become motionless specters, the mass of the crowd is only compressed as a sum of singular individuals, freedom coupled with confinement; as if the "truth" was always in between, refusing established and castrating certainty.
Omar Bey's works include painting, collage, and multimedia assemblage of found objects. He has developed an innovative mastery of materials that allows him to evoke surprise, humor, and contemplation in viewers. He explores and uses many media, mixing different materials that often seem to oppose each other to ultimately form a "balanced" work through strong contrasts. The artist moves from one technique to another without worrying about the idea of virtuosity, creating a contrast not only regarding materials but also in the concept. Free and airy birds become motionless specters, the mass of the crowd is only compressed as a sum of singular individuals, freedom coupled with confinement; as if the "truth" was always in between, refusing established and castrating certainty.
Bey's themes revolve around these contrasts of our existence. Each work explores an absurdity that finds an echo in its construction with materials that seem to contradict each other. His work, close to "art brut", reflects a direct and personal engagement with the tensions of his own experiences in Tunisia, but which are also transmissible to broader contexts.
His work has been presented in various international exhibitions in Paris, London, Barcelona, New York, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi; through contemporary art fairs such as: Cutlog, Dubai Art fair, Abu Dhabi, or 1:54 African Art fair.
︎ @omarbey.art
His work has been presented in various international exhibitions in Paris, London, Barcelona, New York, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi; through contemporary art fairs such as: Cutlog, Dubai Art fair, Abu Dhabi, or 1:54 African Art fair.
︎ @omarbey.art
Exhibitions
Art Fairs
