Twelve Gates Arts is proud to present this solo exhibition of artwork from Mohammad Omar Khalil. Drawn from different series, the works share themes of postcolonial displacement and placemaking - a collection of black prints and color collages of movement across borders. Born in Sudan, Khalil is a master painter and printmaker who has traveled and worked mainly between New York, Italy and North Africa; he attended the Khartoum Technical Institute and went on to obtain his MFA from Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. From there he moved to New York City, where he began working in the studio of Robert Blackburn, and it was there that Khalil made a strong and lasting connection with Krishna Reddy. He is an embodiment of a rare quality of steady and strong but quiet perseverance and leadership, a visual voice for those whose existence stands between ‘defined’ worlds. Khalil is an extraordinarily influential artist who has, over the course of half a century, been able to work in conversation with an extended network of international artists - mentors, peers and students - all the while notably mastering the techniques of dominant traditions without being overpowered by that experience.

For 27 years, Mohammad Omar Khalil and Mohammad Melehi ran the printmaking studio established at Asilah, Morocco in 1978 in collaboration with mayor, Mohamed Benaissa, and New York-based artist Robert Blackburn. He also taught for many years at the Parsons School of Design. The artist’s work is found in different public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, Sharjah Art Foundation, Grenoble Museum in France, the Jordanian National Museum and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Recently he was part of The Multiplication of Perspective a seminar at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to mark the 10th year of the MOMA’s research program to address the dis-inclusions from art history practices of artists who have been present in the environs of the museum in New York. Also in May 2019, Season of Migration to the North I was on display at The Mosaic Rooms, London.