Hazem Harb | Unpublished Figurative Studies

Harb is best known for his mixed-media art which employs an ever-evolving repertoire of mediums and techniques to interrogate notions of time and place in dialogue with his symbolically charged homeland yet drawing remains at the foundations of his practice. 

While material and technique change at regular intervals, as Harb's practice evolves conceptually, the process of sketching is constant, a ritual and routine which he returns to each day. Starting his artistic career as a painter and honing his technical skills at The European Institute of Design in Rome, Harb has produced hundreds of drawings and paintings inspired by his time in Italy, which have remained private and personal to the artist until now. His figurative works - some favoured life models while others plucked from personal interactions - reveal an intimate connection with both charcoal and the human form. His distorted figures, some animated with unexpected rushes of colour, exhibit the artist’s admiration for the German School of Expressionism. Charged with emotion and raw human expression, these works offer an intimate insight into the crux of Harb’s practice; one that is loaded with ideas about identity and exhibits unwavering empathy for the human condition.