Alia Hamaoui
She explores these notions from a 21st century post-digital angle, dissecting these ideas through technological and mass media consumer anecdotes that impregnate our relationship to desire.
Alia Hamaoui's practice explores oscillating ideas between exoticism, Orientalism, tourism and cultural authenticity. She explores these notions from a 21st century post-digital angle, dissecting these ideas through technological and mass media consumer anecdotes that impregnate our relationship to desire. Presented with quasi-archeological tenor, artworks take the form of contemporary relics inspired by ancient reliefs and the cultural aesthetics of her childhood - a time spent split between Lebanon, France and England. Through these forms, objects conjure an auratic realism typically endued to museum artifacts and relics, gesturing toward the intimacy we feel with objects drawn from an imagined or symbolic past.
These concepts manifest themselves in hybrid objects evoking an osmosis of memory with image and a collusion of technical process with haptic forms. Crucial to Hamaoui’s work is a collapsed dichotomy of digital and physical. Her constructions are therefore hybrid and multi-lateral. They combine image and object through an amalgam of disparate craft techniques, made from fragments of sand, plaster, textiles, translucent waxes and soaps to create a visual language rich with antipodal aesthetics. The materiality, ranging from opaque to translucent, textured and smooth attempt to evoke a very sensual experience from the viewer, tapping into our deep sensory desires to connect with objects and disparate timeframes.
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WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN AGAIN
FOR ARTISTS BY ARTISTS, 1 NIGHT ONLY. 4 Feb - 4 Mar 2021Through the invitation extended to established artists into the exhibition. We are hoping to reinstate a balance of power. Allowing established artists to shoulder emerging artists. 50% of sales of works sold by an established artist, will be distributed entirely to all the emerging artists involved. This redistribution of wealth offers a new outlook and model that is fundamentally for artists, by artists, creating an alternative system of support.Read more -
BEGIN AGAIN
As society shifts, the art world shifts. We are on the cusp of change. 13 - 27 Aug 2020This is a time to stop, reflect, create dialogue, and put our words into positive action. To begin again we must shoulder each other, listen to each other, work together and collectively change together. As the newest generation of art collectors, we urge you to collect from this exhibition. The revenue made will support The Free Black University and the newest generation of artists.Read more
Begin
to proceed to perform the first or earliest part of some action; commence; start
Again
once more; another time; anew; in addition
With many thanks to Lotte Andersen for her continuous support throughout this exhibition, and to Pallas Citroen, Director of The Bomb Factory Art Foundation. Who is kindly providing a free gallery space as part of The Guts Prize.