The Family

Omar Shaheed’s “'The Family” is a limestone sculpture featuring an African American family engaged in a loving and protective embrace. This sculpture shows Shaheed’s continued appreciation of the black body as a faceless mother, father, sister and brother turn to each other holding hands and forming an abstracted rectangular shape together. Shaheed explained that this sculpture refers to the black family in the ghettos as the "cornerstone of our community." The symbolization of a black family shows the power of love in this community.

Omar Shaheed is a Columbus native who works primarily in stone and bronze. Shaheed’s abstract sculptures often reflect the life of African Americans with themes such as family, love, musical influence and the “ghetto.” Shaheed has expressed that he began his career as an artist by using his work as a means to leave behind his early struggles with poverty and today his large scale work can be seen internationally across the US, in Negril, Jamaica, and in the west African nation of Burkina Faso. Each piece vibrates with pride, comfort and awareness to the Black experience and expands upon the themes of love and community.

Visit “The Family” outside of the King Arts Complex in Columbus, Ohio.

Quotes from a 2019 interview of Artist Omar Shaheed by Curator, Destyni Green.

Dimensions: 11 ft x 4ftx4ft