Painter Munir D. Mohammed Featured Exhibition - Inside Art With Michael Rose

Painter Munir D. Mohammed Featured Exhibition - Inside Art With Michael Rose

 

For local artist Munir D. Mohammed, a long career has meant a wide variety of experiences. A painter, Mohammed has done everything from craft billboards to illustrating children’s books. His practice shows off how many skills one artist can have and how enriching being a multi-faceted creative can be. Through March 27, a collection of career-spanning works by the artist is on view in Green Hall at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. They show off the work of an artist who has chosen to make the state his home for four decades.

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Mohammed was born in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana, West Africa. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Ghanatta College of Art and began his career as a sign and billboard painter. He soon opened his own studio and completed a variety of commissions across West Africa, including portraits of heads of state. His interest in representational figures, and his fine skill at capturing them, is something that comes across clearly in his showcase at URI.

 

 

Among the pieces in the show are atmospheric portraits executed in large oils or as smaller studies for illustration work. Mohammed is a painter who has a keen sense of story, and of capturing the aesthetic, emotion, and character of his sitters. One of the series that visitors can see at URI includes the original paintings that were used to illustrate the children’s book “Wherever I Go” by Mary Wagley Copp. For this project, Mohammed created extraordinary small-scale paintings that tell big stories. The collection is a case study in how to make visual artworks that respond to an author’s creation.

 

Since moving to the United States in 1988, Mohammed has maintained an active practice on the local scene. He earned a Master’s Degree at the Rhode Island School of Design and has been involved in numerous projects that spanned studio art, public artworks, education, and more. In 1996, he co-founded The International Gallery for Heritage and Culture, and he has executed public projects for organizations like The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, Oasis International, Rhode Island College, and the Rhode Island Transportation Authority. The mural that drivers see as they turn the sharp s-curve in Pawtucket was painted by this artist.

 

 

Although his public work is not exhibited in his solo show at URI, the skills that made it possible are evident. So is his sensitivity to architecture. In several of the paintings from his exhibition, Ghanaian streetscapes exemplify Mohammed’s dexterity with creating evocative surfaces and textures in paint. These images, like so much of Mohammed’s production, transport the viewer.

Beyond making his own art, teaching has also long been an important element of Mohammed’s work as an artist. His studies at RISD were in education and over the years he has collaborated with students at Rhode Island College, the University of Rhode Island, and RISD’s Project Open Door. He has taught subjects like Mural Design and worked alongside emerging artists in order to show them how to craft public art, cultivating the next generation of artists.

 

 

Asked about Mohammed’s work, Steven Pennell, the coordinator of  URI’s Urban Art and Culture Program who organized the show, says, “In addition to Munir's paintings being stunning and showing a variety of styles and media by a single painter.  It covers the worlds where Munir has lived and worked throughout his life.  We see images of village life and landscapes from Ghana, from Sierra Leone through his engagement with Rhode Island and the USA: Jazz musicians, the Narragansetts and American street life.  It enriches our understanding of local life and culture.  Munir's work has been exhibited in the Providence area, but this exhibit reaches a new audience.  After a career as a successful painter and muralist, recently Munir has been commissioned to paint for two children's books.  That group of work in this exhibit gives insight into the artist's process moving from drawings to paintings to book illustration, bringing the written narrative alive in pictures. This is especially informative for student artists (of any age). All of Munir's paintings tell wonderful stories for the viewer to interpret.”

 

 

The collection of paintings exemplifies the wide variety of things Mohammed has done as a working artist and all the routes his fantastic skills have taken. On a recent visit, a URI student could be seen carefully surveying the artworks on view. Perhaps they, too, will someday have an artistic output as varied and impressive as the artist on display.

 

Munir D. Mohammed’s paintings will be on view in Green Hall on the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston campus through March 27, 2025. Learn more about the artist at his website www.munirstudio.com, or follow him on Instagram at @munirstudio.