Abdi Farah
B. 1987, BALTIMORE, MD
LIVES IN NEW ORLEANS, LA
As teenage delusions of playing in the NBA gave way to the equally absurd dream of being the next Basquiat, Baltimore native, Abdi Farah began his art education at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson, Maryland. Abdi received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, graduating with honors. Farah has been fortunate to exhibit art across the country and internationally at institutions including the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Margulies Collection; The Institute for American Universities in Aix en Provence, France; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, to name a few, highlighted by a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Abdi is a 2005 Presidential Scholar in the Arts; a recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship through the Yale Norfolk School of Music and Art; a 2017 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture participant; and a 2021 Black Rock Senegal and Joan Mitchell Center Artist-In-Residence. In 2018 Abdi received his MFA in painting from Tulane University in New Orleans where he continues to live and work. And though not professionally, he still plays a little basketball.
