11/20/2021
Omar Odeh
I am an Iraqi-Canadian artist, trained in Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad 1992-98.
A visual artist, I work with acrylic, collage, and mixed media. I often begin a new painting using fragments from old paintings: they form a starting point. When I fail with a painting I feel guilty. They say it is experience, but there is sadness in failure, too. So, instead of throwing away the failure, I like to keep a part of it as a theme to inspire a new start.
I never start with a subject, but a feeling. I follow my feeling. There is no goal. The goal comes from my feelings. Really, I paint feelings. I focus on feeling more than anything else. Maybe that is why others can feel the paintings too. The paintings live through the feeling.
I am also involved in supporting children and youth in the discovery of colours and art. I have run workshops in Iraq, Syria and Canada. Currently, I am glad to host workshops at Areej Gallery in East Toronto.
In 2018 I was awarded a Toronto Arts Council Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship with Adam Williams.
In 2021 I am grateful to have received a Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation grant for a project titled “Brave New Dreams”.
My work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and galleries in the Middle East from 2004-11, including Al-Rua's Art Gallery, Arab Cultural Center, UNHCR and French Cultural Center, Damascus.
My work also reached beyond the Middle East. My first solo exhibition in the US was entitled “Out of Iraq: Into Exile". It was organized for me, in my absence, and shown at Illuminated Metropolis Gallery in New York City in 2012. I also exhibited at New Theme Gallery in Los Angeles in 2012, as well as several other smaller group exhibitions.
Since I came to Canada in 2012, I have participated in several gallery shows in Toronto. “Purple Dreams”, in April 2017, was my third solo exhibition in Canada.
Art is civilization, and people can be affected positively by it. It can change peoples’ minds, their vision.
My art both reflects me and makes me strong: it is like a family for me.
