حسن شريف

Slippers and Wire

source: global-boardorg

Hassan Sharif is a seminal artist who is deeply associated with the modern history and culture of Dubai and of the United Arab Emirates. He is a major figure in the artistic community of the UAE and has developed a strong body of work.

Sharif studied in Great Britain. He first started to draw caricatures producing abundantly and becoming well known for them. A book of his caricatures will be published in 2011. His art practice is experimental and strongly involved with materiality. He uses cotton, textile, metal, chord and plastic in order to create a variety of objects. His choice of materials reflects the production conditions that he lives and works in: a post-modern, post-global society. His materials also reflect different aspects of our time such as mass manufacturing, for example, through his use of cardboard and packaging – thus also reflecting an interest in human activity, not just his own process of art making but also that of others in other fields.

The centrality of the process of “making” is clear in Sharif’s art practice: it is a precise, painstaking process, often involving repetitive actions and motions in the knotting, folding, wrapping and tying of various materials. Sharif’s work reflects his intentional “doing” and “making” and his consciousness of the conditions that he works in. Historically, his work did not have much public visibility in the UAE, yet he often represented the Emirates abroad. One gets a sense of this paradox and others in his work.
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source: myartguides

Hassan Sharif was born in 1951 in the Emirate of Dubai, U.A.E. He obtained his Diploma in Fine Art and Design in 1984 when he graduated from The Byam Shaw School of Art, London, UK. In 1980 he became the founder and a constant member of the Emirates Fine Art Society, UAE. In 1987 he founded the Art Atelier in the Youth Theater and Arts, Dubai, U.A.E. In 1997, 1999 and 2003 he was a member of jury committee of the Sharjah International Art Biennial. Sharif also worked for local UAE newspapers by publishing comics and write-ups about conceptual arts. Sharif is considered one of the first conceptual artists of the UAE. His work has been exhibited at the 53rd Venice Biennale.