Omar Ba’s highly patterned and elaborate personages combine imagery associated with traditional decoration, famine, despotic self-styled leaders, and factional warfare with observations on popular culture and technological progression. Ba’s works are predominantly painted directly onto corrugated cardboard sheets, his preferred surface for conveying his mythological and speculative themes. His relocation from Dakar to Geneva has had a considerable effect on his art, coalescing scenes that evoke African folklore with postmodern forms of imaging.

Ba studied at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Dakar; the Ecole Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Geneva; and the Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais (ECAV) in Sierre, Switzerland. His work has been exhibited internationally in Colombia, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, Canada and the US. Solo exhibitions include State of Emergency at Hales Gallery in London, the UK in 2014. Receiving the Swiss Art Award in 2014, his work has since entered many important private and institutional collections amongst which, the Credit Suisse Collection, Collection Barbier Muller, and The Mirabaud Contemporary Art Collection. In 2019, Ba had two international retrospectives: Vision Partagée at Le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Canada, and Same Dream at The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada.