We’re pleased to invite you to Omar Khouri’s first solo exhibition in London. This new body of paintings and work on paper, titled Glass, explores a solid separation between two disparate worlds Omar has lived in: the Middle East and the West. A dialogue between cultures that see one another but often have difficulty communicating. Omar translates this in his work through fragmentation of the face: one’s physical identity, the mind and its creation of the outside world. The fragility of glass is represented through cracks, which pose a danger of being able to wound us whilst providing a path. By abstracting the portraits, there’s a universality behind them that separates and holds us together at the same time. The fragmentated composition of these works is based on classical Arabic Geometric Designs – used in everything from floor tiles in homes to borders of miniature paintings – combined with reference to Western traditions of classical portraiture. This conjunction invites the viewer to look through the seams of these cracks, past our individual being to a duality that connects us.