Hazem Mahdy: A Meditation on Connectedness
Abstracted and repeated to the point where it becomes a symbol, the artist’s arm is the subject for his photographic art as well as the medium.
Hazem Mahdy, One, Wahed, Yi, Eins, Alpha, 4 (2012), C print. Courtesy of Carbon 12 Gallery and the artist.
With text by Anna Seaman, visual arts writer.
Abstracted and repeated to the point where it becomes a symbol, Hazem Mahdy’s arm is the subject for his photographic art as well as the medium. In his series, Atman, exhibited at Carbon 12 Gallery in Dubai, Mahdy’s arm was used as a unit to create myriad patterns resembling Islamic geometry or mandalas from Hindu and Buddhist traditions Cast in blue, they also lent themselves to a spiritual reading, one that the artist holds close to the centre of his practice.
“I use my body because this is me in my purest form and it is the most genuine expression I can give,” he says “There are no masks, no cover-ups and there is no hiding. The patterns come from a vision I had while meditating on the idea of connectedness that we are all one. My art is for everyone and I am trying to bring together the concept that there are no separations between us.”
Using a remote and taking self-portraits with his camera, Mahdy says that his technique of photography is less precise then it would be if he was shooting another subject
“It is as if I am shooting blind” he says “I have to take the same image again and again to get it right.”
Once he has the motif, he repeats the image in layers, manipulate it on black background to make the shadows disappear and to bring out the highlights, and finally, in a meditative state, he creates the patterns When Mahdy first discovered the technique, he says he thought the possibilities of it were endless
He began in 2012 with his first solo show, One, Wahed, Yi, Eins, Alpha, where he used his entire body to explore the concept of oneness in many spiritual schools of thought and to fuse the physical with the ethereal to create transcendent art. His second show was in some ways more refined, and in other ways, more reflective of his internal state
He was by his own admission more conflicted with the second show and looking back, he says, he was more conscious of the way they came out “I got stuck with the last show,” he says “I was not controlling how the image would come. They were becoming slightly aggressive.”
The images are skillfully created pieces of art as well as being deeply contemplative and carefully considered works. He has taken symbols and patterns that are loaded with meaning and association and given them a new angle with his photography- a feat that allows him to claim his place as a promising, emerging contemporary artist.
He says, “In the end I want to create spiritual art that pulls someone in to interact with it. The viewer can see what they feel and their minds can float around freely within it. That’s what I want”
Hazem Mahdy is Egyptian and lives and works in Dubai. He was born in 1986 in Sharjah. In 2014 he graduated with a Bachelor of Film Production from the SAE Institute, Dubai, and in 2009, he received his Bachelor of Arts in Photography from the American University in Dubai (AUD)
Attaining Moksha: Photography as Enlightenment, an exhibition of Mahdy’s work, including from his early practice, was on display at AUD’s Rotunda Gallery in 2015.