Interview with Omar Hassan: the boxer-artist who transforms canister breath into a symphony of light and colour
Written by Monica Camozzi
Aleph, in the Kabbalah, is the primary breath. And hearing Omar Hassan describe “the first breath of the spray can when you shake it, it makes a little pellet and drips” has something liturgical about it. Of metaphysics.
He, the boxer-artist, with his pictorial lights capable of illuminating a room, with his microcosm of pellets-metaphors of humanity, truly represents the magic of ideal expression over form.
And it was there, from the breath of the can, that everything was born.
“I am born with that series of coloured dots,
which are then an interpretation of today’s society. In this multiform set of dots, which sometimes try to overwhelm each other but coexist side by side, each one becomes a light’.
Hassan succeeds in expressing the concept of the whole and the monad in a one of a kind manner, as are his light sources lit on the canvas, so much so that ‘someone at the exhibition in the Palazzo Reale, Palermo, went there with his hand to see if there was artificial light projection’.
Your dots have become a work for Driade, but this time made with polychrome wool, how did the collaboration come about?
Fabio Novembre and I wanted to do something together. I love contaminations and I have the attitude of bringing everything to expression in the form of art. We got together several times and made this kind of tapestry, created with wool pellets in the way I usually make paintings.
When did you discover yourself as an artist?
I became aware of it when I started studying art, I noticed that artists had a forma mentis identical to mine, they did the same things that came naturally to me and I thought ‘but then that’s what I am too’. As I went on with the academy I became more aware: I realised this by reading the stories of others.
You transferred the gesture of boxing to paintings, ‘punching’ the canvas and materialising colour on it, how did this artistic habit come about?
At the age of 7, a diagnosis of diabetes changed my life. My career as a competitive boxer came to a halt at the age of 19 and it was there that I asked myself what I was going to do and turned to art. The vocation to paint had already emerged as a child: an entire hallway to be precise, much to my mother’s delight (laughs). I will always thank Alberto Garutti, who consolidated in me the awareness of being an artist, making me understand among other things how an artist behaves and acts towards his archive. And the inspiration came spontaneously to bring the sports metaphor into a painting.
Was it immediately successful?
Yes. Every buyer has the complete video of the artistic painting process, I give it to them on a memory stick.
All my works could end with a sign: the repetition of the gesture, endlessly, to improve it. A profoundly Zen concept.
Moreover, colour can be a double-edged sword, but it is the easiest language to bring everyone together.
Is art concept or emotion?
The concept behind the gesture must exist. And for those who want to listen, I like to explain it,
Art, however, must be a belly, a primary emotion.
I always hope that people are first captivated by the effect and then come to the explanation.
Are you a provoker?
No, the provocation ended with Duchamp and Man Ray. On the contrary, I am a child of a culture of tolerance coming from parents of different cultures, Italian and Egyptian. Curiosity, the desire to know ‘how this is done by you’ has led me to an openness of mind and heart. I am friends with Ghali, with Mahmood, who are also inclined to bring out the ‘light’, which has no political colour.
Even a symbol of beautiful classic dressing, such as Kiton, has created a synergy with you…and how did it come about?
Ciro Paone is a great art collector, he bought a work from the Timelines series, that’s how it came about. We created a limited capsule with a deep search for the texture that would make the material stand out, with emphasis on the stitching. Everything stemmed from a love for art and the intention to create an ad hoc collection, as if the painting was ‘stuck’ on the garments.
Your collaboration with Giacomo Poretti and his Porecast was also beautiful…
Just think that there the collector had refused the work, he thought it was crumpled instead it was a pictorial effect. In the end he took two…
New projects?
Yes, a beautiful one, in Milan Malpensa, on the main gate. It is called Exit Lights and it is the biggest work I have ever done.
