Frieze London 2025: Solo presentation by Omar Fakhoury, Booth F26

For Frieze Focus 2025 we are happy to present the work of Lebanese artist Omar Fakhoury.

Omar Fakhoury is an artist whose focus lies primarily in painting, but also sculpture and urban interventions.

Touch Wood is the artist’s latest project, presented for the first time at the fair. It stems from his 2024 exhibition at Marfa’ in Beirut, titled The Forest, an exploration through a series of paintings of the burning desire to revisit his childhood’s forest.

From The Forest arise myths, anecdotes and superstitions that were passed down through generations to end up nourishing the artist’s childhood psyche. These myths are often ingrained in specific cultural traditions, but they also relate to popular and universal beliefs. They have fed cross-generational and intercultural imaginations ; spilled coffee brings good luck, a knife or a shoe under your pillow prevents nightmares, when a man walks under a rainbow, he turns into a woman, and vice versa... etc.

These myths often originated from ancient traditions, folklore and religious beliefs that make up the fabric of societal heritage, and with time they mutated into other forms. This work re-activates them in a contemporary context.

The myths also serve as means of explaining the incomprehensible, poetic and mystical phenomena that surround us.Touch Wood comprises a large series of small-scale acrylic on linen paintings pinned on the wall, two large-scale paintings and various sculptures that render these myths, traditions and legends tangible.