Anees
Hashel Al Lamki | Dubai
Location: ICD Brookfield Place, Al Mustaqbal Street, DIFC Dubai, United Arab Emirates
About the work
Emirati painter and multi-disciplinary artist, Hashel Al Lamki’s art unpacks the relationship between humankind and their habitat, the wild and constructed. Born in the shadow of the monumental Jebel Hafeet mountain in Al Ain, Al Lamki bore witness to the complex social and spatial dynamics that followed exponential development in the Gulf. Al Ain’s Bedouin culture and distinct social values, its archaeological sites and rugged terrain formed a stark contrast to the rapid industrial and architectural growth that Al Lamki observed in the neighbouring Emirates. Al Lamki’s approach follows Edward T. Hall’s suggestion that the relationship between man and the cultural dimension is dialogical and “one in which both man and his environment participate in moulding each other.” Al Lamki refuses the separation of man and nature, his practice underscores the dependency of mankind on natural resources and their subsequent responsibility for the environmental catastrophe that looms. His approach to art fuses social innovation, sustainability, environmental consciousness. Inspired by scientific methodologies and local artisanal processes, Al Lamki’s palette comprises freshly formed pigments derived from natural resources in the MENA region. Through this process of alchemy, Al Lamki articulates the fragility and scarcity of these elements as well as their immense natural powers.
Anees, 2021
Oil painting, natural pigment, oil pastels, ink on linen
148 x 201 cm
About the Artist
Al Lamki received his BFA from Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York City, in 2011. He went on to contribute to several philanthropic collaborative projects in Central and North America. Al Lamki worked in disaster-stricken Guatemala and Haiti and within low social income communities in the US, his cultural projects were united by a focus upon sustainable practices and social cohesion. After seven years in New York Al Lamki went on to live between Amsterdam, Netherlands and Taos, New Mexico where he immersed himself in solution-finding for post-consumerism waste.
Upon returning to Abu Dhabi in 2014 Al Lamki was awarded the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship. Post-fellowship, in 2018, he joined forces with artists in the UAE that shared a common cause. Together they established a community centred around contemporary art in the Emirates, Bait 15. The artist-run gallery space provided a space for local artists to engage in critical dialogue.
These interdisciplinary and cross-cultural experiences have contributed to Al Lamki’s artistic practice conceptually and technically. His paintings and sculptural works are concerned with the legacies of the landscapes that surrounded him in Al Ain and beyond, the breathtaking and the banal.
Al Lamki’s approach follows Edward T. Hall’s suggestion that the relationship between man and the cultural dimension is dialogical and “one in which both man and his environment participate in moulding each other”. Al Lamki’s compositions charter towering mountain ranges, pristine golf courses and architectural feats. They survey shifts in the ecosystem as much as they divulge changes in the social world, tracing intersecting stories of human migration, climate change, colonisation and evolution. Al Lamki refuses the separation of man and nature, his practice underscores the dependency of mankind on natural resources and their subsequent responsibility for the environmental catastrophe that looms. His approach to art fuses social innovation, sustainability, environmental consciousness. Inspired by scientific methodologies and local artisanal processes, Al Lamki’s palette comprises freshly formed pigments derived from natural resources in the MENA region. Through this process of alchemy, Al Lamki articulates the fragility and scarcity of these elements as well as their immense natural powers.
Al Lamki insists that community engagement remains central to his practice. He regularly engages local artisans and practitioners in his processes in order to feedback into local economies and unite seemingly disparate individuals and institutions. Learn more here.