A solo exhibition of artist Omar Udoin from Haifa • "Color printing"

The exhibition will be open to the general public between April 13 and May 11, 2024

Omer Udoin, 24 years old, diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, has already exhibited quite a few of his works in Israel and abroad, and has won awards for them. Now, for the first time, he is opening a solo exhibition featuring many works he has painted in recent years, which give us a taste of his inner world.

Curators: Ronit Halfon and Itzik Kochavi

The artist Omer Udoin will open for the first time a solo exhibition, "Color Printing", at the House of the Association of Painters and Sculptors in Haifa, starting on April 13, featuring works he created in the last seven years in which he became an artist. Udoin does this after participating in a series of group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, winning international awards and selling his works all over the world.

Omar, 24 years old, an artist who has been diagnosed since the age of two on the autistic spectrum. Through the paintings you can get a taste of Omar's world, and during the exhibition we are required to deal with concepts from his everyday life and the creative processes in particular.

Omar Odwin's works represent a very different relationship between the artist's work and his memory. The painting in this case is a form of dealing with the suppression and non-expression of the memory, and it is he who records through the creation the thoughts of Udoin and opens a window into the soul of the artist. Udoin's works are a window into his inner world, colorful and rich in details. Through painting he shares feelings and makes choices that are not possible on a daily basis. His extraordinary drawing abilities were only discovered at the age of 17, and since then he has developed a personal and unique artistic style with his own stamp.

His paintings are characterized by abstraction, bold color surfaces and a naive-optimistic view of life, and his works are influenced by the modern expressionist artists: Amedao Modliani, Egon Schilla, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh.

Omar's techniques

Omar Odwin works in various techniques, mainly acrylic paints on canvas, watercolors and mixed media combined with fabrics, and the exhibition will also show sketches and a number of sculpture works he created recently. As an artist diagnosed on the autism spectrum, art is his main way of expressing his feelings, and giving others access to his inner world.

In recent years, Udoin, together with the artist and mentor Mickey Goldstein, has developed rituals that lead to self-expression through painting. Layers of colors and shapes take us on a journey through his world, creating an emotional experience that takes on additional dimensions through the transition from sketches to creating material.

The process begins with exposure to works and content worlds that Omer loves. This is how an internal connection between the artist and the work is created. Each drawing is preceded by two sketches of different sizes, in soft colors and with few details.
In this way, a distance from the source is created in two stages, and the paintings receive personal interpretations, and a work is created with a connection to the source, but it is personal and unique to Omar. After that, the sketch is converted to the drawing surface designated by the pencil outline, taking care to preserve the proportions. Each step is done from memory and without looking at the previous step, and this is how Omar manages to express a personal interpretation from his inner world.

At this stage, Omar begins to work meticulously, and some would say Sisyphean, to produce shapes and visual textures that fill the surface almost completely. There is no prior planning for this stage, and this is how Omar's world is expressed in three different layers: a relatively flat sketch, a painting with several layers of colors, and sometimes a three-dimensional sculpture.

Unique patterns that repeat themselves

In regular bi-weekly meetings and in a clean work environment, Omar progresses painting after painting (there will never be two at the same time), using regular techniques he has developed over the years - rotating the brush, the precision of the lines or rotating the image. Thus, he created unique patterns that repeat themselves and are identified with him and his works. Through creation, he finds a place to express emotion, authenticity and sincerity directly and without an intermediary, which are embodied in the experience of meeting the final result.

The chronological development of the work also reflects the artist's emotional development. Complex processes that do not come intuitively such as making decisions, renouncing accuracy and complete transitions between colors are examples of Omar's ability to deal with and develop through painting.

Omar's choice to paint and sculpt figures can be seen despite his preferences in the outside world to avoid communication with people. Despite the communication difficulties that characterize autism, Omar manages to create a relationship with his own characters, and so when they mediate between us and him, we get to be guests in his world through colors, shapes and emotions.

Omar Udoin

Omar Udoin, born in 1999, has created dozens of paintings to date, which he presented in exhibitions in Israel and around the world, and even won awards for them.

Among the exhibitions he participated in:

• "Perfect Imperfection", a joint exhibition between him and Miki Goldstein at the Lemon Frame Gallery in 2018
• Participation in the international exhibition of naive art at the artists' house in Haifa, 2018
• Participation in the FRESHPAINT ART FAIR in 2021
• In the group exhibition, Comedia Della Vita in 2021
• His paintings were also chosen to be exhibited at SWISS ART- EXPO 2019 as part of the ARTBOX GALLERY PROJECT
• Omar has also won international awards, including an award of excellence from the Circle Foundation For The Arts and the artist of the future award from the contemporary art curator magazine

The exhibition "Color Printing" is his first solo exhibition

The curators of the exhibition are Ronit Halfon and Itzik Kochvi, graduates of curation in design in Shankar, who deal with exhibitions with an emphasis on social values. The shared curation experience allows them to complement each other and thus bring multi-dimensional added value.

More details:

• The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday, April 13, at a launch event at 11:00, at the Association of Painters and Sculptors, 24 Sderot Zion, Haifa.
• The exhibition will be open to the public until Saturday, May 11.
• Admission is free
• Opening hours of the exhibition: Sunday-Saturday, 10:00-14:00