Sanou Oumar (b. 1980; Burkina Faso, West Africa) lives and works in the Bronx. He graduated from the University of Ouagadougou in 2007 with a major in English literature. In 2015, Oumar moved to the United States to seek asylum, which he received in 2025. He is represented by Gordon Robichaux in New York, where he had his first two-person exhibition (with Matt Paweski) in 2018, and Herald St in London, where he presented his first solo exhibition in 2019. In 2021, his work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Herald St in London and at Gordon Robichaux in New York, which were reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, and Frieze.

In 2022, his work was included in Drawing in the Continuous Present at The Drawing Center, New York. Group exhibitions include the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art; a two-person exhibition (with Elisabeth Kley) at South Willard, Los Angeles (organized by Matt Connors); The Minneapolis Institute of Art; Karma, New York; Essex Flowers, New York (organized by Melissa Brown); Parker Gallery, Los Angeles; Herald St, London; Maroncelli 12, Milan (organized by Matt Paweski and Jacopo Mazzetti); Gordon Robichaux, New York; Mormor Studio, New York (organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights); and Joost van den Bergh, London. Oumar’s work is held in the collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

A monograph dedicated to Oumar’s drawings (published by Pre-Echo Press, with an essay by Matt Paweski) was released in 2018. His work is also featured in Meaning Matter Meaning: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Collection (Phaidon, 2025); THIS TOO IS A MAP (Seoul Museum of Art, 2023); Drawing in the Present Tense (The Drawing Center, 2022); and Vitamin D3: Today’s Best in Contemporary Drawing (Phaidon, 2021).