Omar Bey

Omar Bey’s works include paintings, collages and mixed-media assemblages of found objects. He has developed an innovative command of materials that enable him to evoke surprise, humor, and contemplation in viewers.

Bey’s concepts revolve around the paradoxical excess of modern human existence. Each work explores a dissonance that is echoed in its construction with materials that contradict one another. With an interest in defying the unspoken rules of incompatibility, his work is akin to “art brut”. With a practice characterized by the juxtaposition of dense objects with the delicate, Bey’s self-proclaimed “Contrastivist” tendencies are best displayed with pieces where birds eager for flight are bound by wire and fish trapped in nets resemble distant stars, leaving the onlookers oblivious to their plight. Bey’s recent work reflects a more direct and personal engagement with the tensions of his own experiences in Tunisia, transmutable to broader contexts. When reflecting on his oeuvre, Bey investigates our collective complacency within the reality of our mundanity. For him, the dissonance of the earth’s importance and irrelevance ring key to his practice.

Omar Bey graduated from L’Institut Supérieur des Beaux-art in Tunis in 1998, and completed a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts during 2011–2012. His work has been exhibited at various international art fairs in Paris, London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.