Omid Shekari is an artist from Iran who works with different mediums and genres: paintings, drawings, sculpture, and installations. He is deeply committed to the responsibility of art to reflect and resist sovereign violence in both its flagrant forms (wars, tortures, prisons) and in its everyday forms (abandonment and policing of bodies). In his artworks, Shekari reveals how force and violence determine the rhythms of power structures. He explores the power dynamics between repressed and repressor that has existed in our society and has been normalized under capitalism. Overall, his projects refuse to secede or be bogged down by power but seek to create idioms and modes of resistance and liberation.
Shekari earned a BFA from Soore University in Iran and an MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Shekari’s work has been exhibited at The Sculpture Center (Cleveland), The Drawing Center, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, NADA Art Fair (New York City), Marginal Utility Gallery, Gallery Joe, PAFA Museum, Fleisher Art Memorial, Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia), Greenfield Community College (Massachusetts), Akron Art Museum, Ohio State University (Ohio), and Azad Art Gallery (Tehran).
Shekari teaches at Oberlin College and the University of Pittsburgh.