Doctor's art reflects past in Somalia

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Dr. Mohamed Osman is every bit the physician - doting like a parent, methodical in his actions, analytical but not aloof.

With just enough gray hair to suggest wisdom, a gray suit and an oxford with button-down collars, the only thing that hints at Osman's creative streak is his tie: a print of Salvador Dali's surreally drooping timepieces strewn across a beach in "The Persistence of Memory."

It turns out, however, that the qualities that make the 49-year-old former refugee from Somalia a doctor have also made him an unlikely artist.

And the persistence of memories from his conflict-ravaged homeland, combined with his work as a doctor in Kenya, may well have been the impetus that spurred Osman to pick up a brush in 1995 and teach himself to paint.

Art exhibits :: The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle will hold its annual art exhibit at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center from March 1 to April 5 in the Level 2 Galleria. The show features works from local and nationally known minority artists. Osman will have two works on display. Admission is free. :: Barnes & Noble's Federal Way store is at 31325 Pacific Highway S. The Coalition of African American Artists exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Now this staff physician at Group Health Cooperative's clinic in Kent operates his own Web site, www.osmanart.homestead.com, where he displays and sells the more than 200 acrylic paintings he has produced over the past five years.

Seven of his works will be on display at the Barnes & Noble Art Gallery in Federal Way until Feb. 28, as part of the Coalition of African American Artists exhibit.

Two paintings will be included in an art exhibit that is being put on by the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle starting Thursday at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle.

Osman grew up in Merka, a town situated behind sand dunes on the Indian Ocean.

His father was a tailor of men's and women's clothing, and little Mohamed would help out by taking measurements for customers.

Many of Osman's richly hued, somber paintings depict scenes of domestic life in Somalia.

But some of Osman's other works evoke the sadness, disillusionment, shattered self-image and longing of Somalis who fled the country a decade ago when civil strife broke out.

Osman rattles off the date when he decided to flee Somalia as if it happened yesterday.

"July 26, 1989," he said.

That's the day soldiers from the military regime fired on anti-government demonstrators.

He could see the melee from his rooftop.

"I have seen with my own eyes people being shot," Osman said, his voice rising. "I've seen five people dead in front of me."

Osman, then an elite United Nations physician practicing in the capital, Mogadishu, smuggled himself, his dentist wife, Natalia Zaitseva, 4-year-old daughter, Katherina, and two bags of luggage to Toronto by way of New York.

As refugees, they lived on welfare in Toronto for two years before he began a grueling residency in Ohio.

Osman started painting scenes of Somalian life during sleepless nights in Toledo.

"Instead of reading somebody's books, he was trying to remember his life," Osman's wife said. "He paints from his memories."

But "you don't have to be from Africa or America or Russia to relate to his paintings," she added.

Osman is quick to point out that his work, while deeply reflective, is not all based on his own life.

A successful doctor at Group Health, he's had it better than many Somalis who scattered to other countries.

"I'm doing this to heal other people," he said matter-of-factly.

Still, Osman, as both doctor and artist, clearly relates to his subjects, even though they are thousands of miles away from his new home in Auburn.

"I've learned how to be humane," he said, recalling the profound experience of practicing medicine in Kenya's Rift Valley from 1982 to 1985.

Doctors were scarce but desperately needed in the region.

"I've learned how to see suffering faces," Osman said, "faces with different patterns of emotion."

Even in Kenya, others saw the makings of an artist in Osman. He created some of his first artwork - out of melted candle wax - purely out of necessity while working in Kenya. The bare walls of their home needed some decoration.

Osman's art still is a necessity, but in a more meaningful way.

He says he doesn't want Somali immigrants living in North America to lose touch with their history and culture.

"I'm creating something they can link to," Osman said. "Otherwise, all this would be lost."