Artist talk with Mohammad Omar Khalil (featuring Ksenia Nouril, PhD, Jensen Bryan Curator, The Print Center):

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.