Opening Reception, Saturday, June 27, 2pm - 5pm
Limited free seating is available on a roundtrip chartered bus from New York City for the June 27 opening. Reservations are required and can be made on this by calling +1 845-758-7598 or emailing Mary Rozell at mrozell@bard.edu.
In Between provides a glimpse into two decades of art by Uman (b. 1980, Somalia), highlighting key moments and innovations in the trajectory of this prolific and pathbreaking artist. Uman’s distinct visual vocabulary first emerges in early paintings, collages, and drawings, then expands into large-scale and densely layered compositions. Always, her process is one of constant working and reworking to enliven a primary set of signs, symbols, colors and textures.
Uman’s art has often been framed through biography: her winding path as an immigrant, and her evolution as a self-taught artist. This exhibition shifts the focus toward the techniques and themes of her work, examining her exploration of the natural world, the variability of selfhood, and the capacities of color. In her art, color is both material and memory. Her vibrant palette, which seems to invite each color to be its fullest self, expresses sensation, dreams, landscapes, and history, and her surfaces are tactile. Among many inventive approaches, she has eschewed paintbrushes in favor of using her fingers, directly touching paint to the surface, and stitched together her own canvases from found fabrics. For Uman, any material—whether scavenged junk or gallery walls—is a candidate for covering with radiant, expressive mark-making.
In Between highlights the artist’s rigorous experimentation, her commitment to challenging scale and convention, positioning her as one of the most vital and original painters at work today.
About Uman
Uman is a multimedia artist who lives and works in upstate New York. She creates lavishly detailed microcosms replete with color, gesture, geometry and evocations of the natural world. Reflecting her experiences growing up across continents and cultures, her vibrant visual vocabulary draws upon memories of East African childhood, rigorous education in traditional Arabic calligraphy, deep engagement with dreams and fascination with kaleidoscopic color. With nods to self-portraiture and fictional topographies, Uman’s works fluidly inhabit a liminal space between abstraction, figuration, and meditative patterning.
Solo exhibitions include I Love You After Everything, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2025); Uman: After all the things…, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut (2025); Uman: A Fantastic Woman, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland (2025); Darling sweetie, sweetie darling, Hauser and Wirth, London (2024); Uman: I want everything now, Nicola Vassell, New York (2023); Goodnight, sweetdreams, Eleni Koroneou, Athens (2022); I hope this finds you well, Fierman, New York (2021); I will sit here and wait for you, Fierman, New York (2019) and Uman, White Columns, New York (2015). Group presentations include the traveling exhibition Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, currently on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (2026); 12th Site Santa Fe, Curated by Cecilia Alemani, New Mexico (2025); The Abstract Future, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2025); The Selves, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2024); Abstraction, (re)creation, Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2024); Supra Nature, Anne De Villepoix, Paris, France (2023); Sanctuary, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2020) and A house to die in, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2012).
Exhibition Catalogue
A catalogue published by Monicelli Press will be released in tandem with the opening of Uman: In Between, including essays from Roberta Smith and curator Lauren Cornell. Pre-order available here.
Exhibition Organization and Credits
Uman: In Between is organized by CCS Bard’s Hessel Museum of Art and curated by Lauren Cornell.
Major support for Uman: In Between is provided by the Bukhman Foundation; the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Hauser & Wirth; Jill and Peter Kraus; Shelly and Neil Mitchell; Nicola Vassell Gallery; Speyer Family Collection, New York; Alexander S. C. Rower & Elan Gentry; and R&F Handmade Paints.
Exhibitions at CCS Bard and the Hessel Museum of Art are made possible with generous support from Lonti Ebers, the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Board of Governors of the Center for Curatorial Studies, the Leadership and Curator’s Councils, and the Center’s Patrons, Supporters, and Friends.
