Presentation

OMAR MAHFOUDI WAS BORN IN TANGER, MOROCCO, IN 1981. HE LIVES AND WORKS IN PARIS. Omar Mahfoudi grew up not far from the Strait, where he discovered painting within the family circle, then drawing through personal experimentation. But it was at the age of 12 that young Omar developed his eye and gesture at the Catholic school in Tangier, where he took part in art history and plastic arts classes. After a long period proposing compositions marked by the presence of matter, Omar Mahfoudi turned to the fluidity of liquid acrylic and ink, favoring compositions that play on the border between figuration and abstraction. Omar Mahfoudi's boundless cinephilia is perceptible in his work, as much through the references he slips in as through the play of framing, colorimetry and luminosity present in his pictorial work. His life experiences, personal research and cultural knowledge feed his poetic and humanistic creations. Omar Mahfoudi plays with presence and absence through the emptiness that fills his works with a sense of mystery and existential solitude. His compositions can be distinguished sometimes by lush vegetation, sometimes by a desert biome; sometimes by disturbing shadows, sometimes by soothing figures, in a washed-out atmosphere oscillating between lost paradise, melancholy twilights and unfathomable nights. Thus, in this constant balancing act between presence and absence, figuration and abstraction, tension and appeasement, Omar Mahfoudi composes a painting that is both oxymoronic and cinematic. His work has been shown at numerous international events, including the 1-54 fair in London, UK, Art Genève in Switzerland and Art Cologne in Germany. Source : https://afikaris.com/fr/artists/44-omar-mahfoudi/