Uman

Born in Somalia and raised in Kenya, Uman emigrated to Denmark as a teenager and later to New York as a young adult. An intuitive artist and autodidact, she now lives and works in upstate New York.

Uman’s vibrant visual vocabulary reflects her expansive cross-cultural experiences. Drawing upon her memories of East African childhood, rigorous education in traditional Arabic calligraphy, deep engagement with dreams, and fascination with kaleidoscopic color, she paints lavishly detailed worlds replete with gesture, geometry and evocations of the sublime. While these works are executed primarily with oil paint, she also combines acrylic paint, oil stick and collage techniques. With nods to self-portraiture and fictional topographies, Uman’s paintings fluidly inhabit a liminal space between physical and spiritual realms, exploring abstraction, figuration, meditative patterning and a reverence for the natural world.

The artist’s solo exhibitions include Darling sweetie, sweetie darling, Hauser and Wirth,London (2024); Uman: I want everything now, Nicola Vassell, New York (2023); Goodnight, sweetdreams, Eleni Koroneou, Athens (2022) and Uman, White Columns, New York (2015). Selected group exhibitions include The Selves, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2024); Abstraction, (re)creation, Le Consortium, Dijon (2024); Sanctuary, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2020) and A house to die in, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2012). Uman’s first solo institutional exhibition will be at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut (2025), to be followed by a survey exhibition at the Hessel Museum, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2026).