Mohamed Omar was born in Somalia and moved to Portland, Oregon when he was five years old.  By his own account, his work is rooted in a deep concern for color:

“I get inspired by the colors of the sky, bright sunsets, primary colors, bold colors.  I really wanted to use certain greens, so I painted the Statue of Liberty.  I think of colors and different shapes, sometimes words.  When I’m out in the community I feel ok and special and I see different things like cars, trucks, and bricks.  When I see paintings like yellow, black, red, and blue, and red cars, I choose those colors.  Or the sunset.  And I like different colors.”

While his early paintings exhibit a meditative simplicity, over time he has been drawn increasingly towards figurative gestures and developed a playful, expressive style all his own.  In his loosely rendered scenes, quilt-like images of cartoon characters and jungle cats are cobbled together from discrete blocks of color.  He augments his patchwork scenery with words whose rainbow lettering resembles train car graffiti and refrigerator magnets in equal measure.  Like the bright sunsets he reveres, his works invite you to bask in their warmth.  In addition to his work as a visual artist, Mo is a member of the audiovisual collective Videotones and records music under the name M. Omar.  His debut album Mo’s World was released on cassette via Cityland Records in 2023.