A Name to Know: Omar Lalani

this month's rising star to keep your eyes on

Omar Lalani is an artist you should know. His practice is one of discovery. With a method that feels closer to sculpting, Omar applies paint in a considered and knowing way that only comes about from years spent in the studio, observing what might make itself known on the painting’s surface. On one painting alone, six, seven, or eight iterations might exist underneath the one that arrives as the finished product. Omar incorporates a back and forth play pushing the painting further toward the place that feels complete.

Name: Omar Lalani
Mode: Painting
Homebase: Queens, NY

INSIDE THE STUDIO

What is your most often used tube of paint?
I’d say I go through zinc white the most. I like my paint to be opaque for the most part, zinc white lets me do that without cooling/flattening the colors out too much, which titanium white does for me.

How would you describe what you are hoping to accomplish with each of your works?
Very tough to say, I think there has to be multiple landmarks. In terms of basic formal elements, the color has to work, and sometimes that's good enough. I find that I’m sculpting a form out these days, rather than picturing it, and that means the central form has to feel like it's occupying the same space as you. I’m also always painting something and taking it apart, so the figure becomes a field and then a figure again. I'll find something specific about the painting in that back and forth and the final painting is built off of that. I think it’s a way of visualizing the exchange between our interiority and exteriority.