Uman

A Fantastic Woman

23 January – 23 May 2025

For her second exhibition with the gallery, Uman presents all new paintings and works on paper at Zurich, Limmatstrasse, in equal partnership with Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York NY.

Living and working in Upstate New York, Uman’s new paintings reflect her reverence for the natural world. Fluidly navigating in-between realms to explore both the physical and spiritual, intertwining abstraction, figuration and meditative patterning, Uman draws upon her memories of her East African childhood, rigorous education in traditional Arabic calligraphy, deep engagement with dreams and fascination with kaleidoscopic color and design. Expanding on this unique visual language, Uman’s new body of work also explores ideas of color field painting, looking to artists such as Frank Bowling in her practice. With some works suspended from the ceiling and a site-specific wall mural that will transform part of the gallery space, Uman invites the viewer to be immersed in her lavishly detailed and opulently colored worlds, replete with gesture, geometry and evocations of the sublime.

About the Artist

Uman

Uman’s dazzling visual vocabulary reflects her life and expansive cross-cultural experiences. Born in Somalia and raised in Kenya, she migrated to Denmark as a teenager and later to New York NY as a young adult. Now, with a home and studio in Upstate New York, Uman paints richly-hued worlds replete with gesture, geometry and the sublime. An intuitive artist, her influences abound from memories of East African childhood, a rigorous education in traditional calligraphy and a fascination with kaleidoscopic color and design. With nods to self-portraiture and fictional topographies, Uman’s paintings speak fluently of liminal navigation. Her work contemplates both the physical and spiritual, intertwining abstraction, figuration, meditative patterning and a reverence for the natural world.

Uman has had solo exhibitions at Nicola Vassell, New York NY; Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, Greece; Fierman, New York NY; Anne De Villepoix, Paris, France; and White Columns, New York NY. She has been featured in group exhibitions at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada; For-Site Foundation at Fort Mason Chapel, San Francisco CA; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK; Karma, New York NY; and Ramiken Crucible, New York NY.

In 2022, she was the recipient of the inaugural grant for The Cube at TRIADIC’s FORMAT Festival in Bentonville AR.

Learn more about this artist