Omar Hassan

Overview

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“In boxing, as in life, you are alone: Boxing requires hard work and daily effort. When you are knocked down, you must get back up on your feet and continue to fight.”

Bio&Cv Eng

Bio&Cv Ita

Works

Omar Hassan
Breaking Through Lambrate #12, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 200 cm
70.9 x 78.7 in
Omar Hassan
Breaking Through Lambrate #3, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 200 cm
70.9 x 78.7 in
Omar Hassan
Dal 2 Settembre 2016 al 5 gennaio 2017, 2016/2017
Spray paint on canvas
190 x 200 cm
74.8 x 78.7 in
Omar Hassan
CAP 898, 2016
Spray can caps in plexiglas case
75 x 75 x 5 cm
29.5 x 29.5 x 2 in
Omar Hassan
Do the Right Thing, 2016
Spray paint on canvas.
200 x 150 cm
78.7 x 59.1 in
Omar Hassan
Guantone dx Milano, 2016
Mixed media on punching glove
30 x 15 x 12 cm
11.8 x 5.9 x 4.7 in
Omar Hassan
Acid, 2015
Spray paint on canvas and wood frame
170 x 140 cm
66.9 x 55.1 in
Omar Hassan
Hagakure (X,5), 2015
Spray paint on canvas and wood frame
83 x 63 cm
32.7 x 24.8 in
Omar Hassan
Light Blue, 2015
Spray paint on canvas and wood frame
193 x 133 cm
76.0 x 52.4 in

Biography

Born in Milan, Italy in 1987

Omar Hassan graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 2010, and after several group and solo exhibitions, he was invited by Vittorio Sgarbi; curator of the Italian Pavilion, to exhibit at the 2011 54th Venice Biennale.

After 10 years of training in the professional boxing ring, Hassan was disqualified when a diagnosis of diabetes was discovered, being unable to fully explore his passion, Hassan returned to his other love; investing all his energy into the artistic practice.

In a series of paintings called "Breaking Through" Hassan combines painting and performance in his vigorously gestural technique inspired by his boxing career which involves dipping his boxing gloves into paint and punching onto a large canvas. Yet the "Injections" series consisted of paintings with single dots of colour with streams of paint issuing from the nucleus. They refer to his daily shots of insulin from being diabetic.

Hassan says he finds inspiration in the work of graffiti pioneers such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and in Jackson Pollock's masterful abstractions, but he doesn't feel to be categorised according to one style only. His work takes various forms, from whimsical dappled splotches to lines of wet paint that drip down to a street installation of raised cubes covered in rainbow tones. Furthermore, both his multilayered works on canvas and those cast in plaster or bronze reflect his trademark attention to materiality.

Hassan has created several public works in Italy and the UK. These include One Wall at the Palazzo della Regione in Milan, the Museo Mille Miglia in Brescia, the Accademia delle Belle Arti Aldo Galli in Como and Colour Cube in London's Brick Lane, the redecoration of a concrete bollard located alongside the East London Line. They all make use of his signature motif found in the injections series.

Among the latest solo exhibitions, Quarta Civitas at the Lavazza Museum in Turin, Punctum conceived with the Federico II Foundation at the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, and IL MONDO È N(v)OSTRO at the Stelline Foundation in Milan.