"Comprising painting, drawing, murals, mosaic, sculpture, and glass, her work is rooted in the tangibility of color and the transportive power of images. Shaped by memories, dreams, and the constant flux of life around her, Uman's visual language is intuitive and multilayered, adaptable and free; it is neither exclusively abstract nor metaphorical - it grows out of what is indeterminate and into the transcendent."
"Created with oil, acrylic, spray paint, oil stick, and even sometimes incorporating elements of collage and sewing as well, Uman's compositions dance with animated hues and phantasmagoric patterns. Working on many pieces simultaneously, Uman builds her pictorial arrangements - many of which reference 19th-century French painting, surrealism, and visionary abstraction alongside the natural world - with energetic mark-making methods, using dry brushes and even her fingers and palms, resulting in surface treatments that disrupt the conventional distinction between paintings and drawing."
Uman's interdisciplinary practice spans painting, drawing, murals, mosaic, and sculpture, grounded in the tangibility of color and the transportive power of images. The exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut runs through May 10, 2026 and includes new paintings, works on paper, video, and sculpture. Materials include oil, acrylic, spray paint, oil stick, collage, and sewing; compositions feature animated hues and phantasmagoric patterns. Inspirations draw on childhood in East Africa, diasporic life in Europe and the US, textiles, Somali bazaar fabrics, Arabic calligraphic flourishes, and Kenyan and Upstate New York landscapes. Energetic mark-making with dry brushes, fingers, and palms produces surfaces that blur painting and drawing while nodding to 19th-century French painting, surrealism, and visionary abstraction.
Read at Hyperallergic
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