For Abu Dhabi Art, Palestinian visual artist Hazem Harb has produced a new body of work, Dystopia Is Not A Noun, against the backdrop of the atrocities inflicted upon Gaza's civilians that intensified during October 2023.
As a Gazan native and with numerous family members still residing there, violence has been an ever-present force in Harb's life and has formed a central theme in his art. For Harb, art serves as a means to distil the overwhelming emotions and profound pain that has accrued over the decades—the psychological amputation caused by exile and the systematic oppression endured by the Palestinian people.
Beginning his artistic career drawing and painting, Harb was influenced by the abstract expressionist movement, yet he later honed his own approach to contemporary collage. His collage practice prioritises the remediation of archival objects as both an act of resistance and a form of documentation of the Palestinian experience. However, in these new works, created during a time of profound pain, Harb has returned to charcoal on paper after more than a decade. This shift represents a departure from the somewhat clinical process of collage, distant from the artist’s hand, towards a more bodily approach through the gestural application of charcoal on canvas. These works encapsulate the artist's inner sense of loss. They are an attempt to express the unspeakable and process anguish that cannot be verbalised. These works on paper that combine abstraction and figuration, see Harb’s focus return to Harb's return to the human form, invoking the corporeal essence etched in the artist's mind's eye. The use of charcoal in this series holds profound significance for Harb; the black carbon dust echoes that which now settles upon his home, Gaza.
