Michael Hambouz
I've noticed a rapid growth of grey hairs on my head in the last two years...not sure if it's a physical manifestation of our turbulent surroundings, reduced exposure to the sun, or simply me just getting older; most likely, all of the above. Conjuring thoughts on mortality of self and that of the planet...my brain toggles rapidly between: how we can fix this mess; and how perhaps Mother Earth just needs a break from us all. And if by the year 2077 (my 100th birthday), if humans no longer exist, what will the world look like? And will objects that have been quietly observing our behaviors pick up where we left off in personified form? The delicate, surgical precision of hand-cutting paper provides slow and thoughtful meditative escapism. The deliberate positioning of objects creates subtle narrative ambiguity, riding the line between dramatic dystopian-scape and colorful, humorous absurdity.
Michael Hambouz (b. Niles, Michigan, 1977) Bio
I am a multidisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist musician, and independent curator based in Brooklyn, NY. I create chromaesthesia-influenced works featuring the commingled “familiar” and “imagined” as observed in my dreams, and channel these visions as metaphor for my time spent in the rural Midwest and New York City through the lens of a first-generation Palestinian-American. Experimenting freely with mediums, I encourage unexpected results and mutations in compositional form to bloom in the studio, resulting in conceptually abstracted paintings and prints, intricate paper cut outs, sculpture, drawings and animations.
