UMAN

I hope this finds u well

September 8 - October 24

FIERMAN presents I hope this finds u well, a solo exhibition of new painting and sculpture by Uman. It is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, following her acclaimed I will sit here and wait for you in 2019. Uman is known for her fearless sense of stylistic and material experimentation, moving between graphic monochromatic figuration and optically vivid abstraction, as well as her use of assemblage and collage. When viewed collectively her work serves as visual communication, with the artist speaking to the implicative ‘you’ of her poetic exhibition titles, and with a multitude of eyes, some coy, some direct, beseeching engagement.

Working on a large scale, Uman in this exhibition presents four colorful compositions that envelop the viewer in her singular mindscape. The process is one of accumulative layering, with quick coats of sprayed acrylic paint covered over by thick layers of both oil paint and oil pastel. The two largest paintings on view, a pair of seven by seven foot squares titled Guddud (red) and Haruud (yellow) evince a new, looser direction for the artist. Large swathes of colorful, washy oil paint sit atop a lyrical web of acrylic lines. As ever in Uman’s work, abstract forms morph into figuration, be it human, flora, or fauna, often ciphers of the artist herself. In another painting entitled The Shaman, she uses this fusion of spray paint and oil to depict an ornately adorned figure of indeterminate gender staring aggressively outward to the viewer.

The fourth painting on view, up and in between, is a more tightly woven composition. Various eyes, single and in pairs, emerge through a web of branches, leaves, and abstracted limbs. The energetic center of the painting is a face both comprised of and concealed by the intersecting forms; the face is in constant flux of unbecoming, as tropical branches become an elaborate headdress and heavily lidded eyes beseech interaction with the viewer. The painting is a fusion of Uman’s self-portraits, landscapes, and abstractions, and as such call to the fore the emotional life of the artist behind the painting.

Amidst the paintings stands an imperious figurative sculpture, made in collaboration with the artist’s husband Denis Arvay, a mannequin painted to resemble the artist bedecked in voluminous, lurid green foam, resembling some impossibly glamorous alien. The figure appears to emerge from the primordial ooze and simultaneously wears the bubbling foam as a gown. The figure beckons quietly, awaiting her interlocutor.

Uman (b. 1980, Somalia) lives and works in Albany, NY. Forthcoming she will have a two artist with Gerasimos Floratos at Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, GR. Past solo and group exhibitions include The Earth, That is Sufficient, Nicola Vassell Gallery, NY (2021); Face to Face -Traversés Africaines, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris (2021); The Human Scale, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN (2021); (Nothing but) Flowers, KARMA, NY (2020); Red Telephone, FIERMAN, NY (2020); I will sit here and wait for you, FIERMAN, NY (2019); 35 Years a Black Sheep, Louis B. James, NY (2016); and Uman, White Columns, NY (2015). Her work has been publicized in The New York Times, Time Out NY, among other publications.