Breaking The Habit - ONLINE

About

Enjoy the virtual exhibition Breaking The Habit in our VR Gallery on Art Gate VR, the art market in virtual reality, using the Art Gate VR APP onto your Oculus Go or Quest VR headset.

For further information email: info@criscontinicontemporary.com

or online by clicking the link below: https://criscontinicontemporary.com/exhibitions/20-breaking-the-habit-omar-hassan/

The exhibition allows the visitors to explore Hassan's creative approach through his series of artworks.

Born in Milan in 1987 to an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, Omar Hassan was introduced to the Milan underground art scene at a young age. Hassan’s initial interest in street art soon developed into a passion for a diverse range of art. While studying at the Fine Art Academy of Brera, Hassan discovered a strong attraction to post-war Italian artists such as Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni in whose works the creative process is as much a part of the artwork as the final result.

Speaking about the impact of street art on his work, Hassan said ‘Street Art techniques have always been a fundamental element of my practice; this stems from experimenting with spray-paint in the tunnels of Milan as a teenager. I have continued to use spray paints as homage to the street art genre, yet it is not a movement that I am defined by. I don’t enjoy the limitations of being categorized’.

After 10 years of training as a professional boxer, Omar Hassan was forced to stop boxing due to a diagnosis of diabetes; being unable to fully explore his passion, the artist returned to his second love, investing all his energy into the artistic practice.

The series “Injections” consists of single dots and streams of paint dripping down from their core, and they refer to the artist’s daily shots of Insulin.

In the series of paintings called “Breaking Through” Hassan combines painting and performance in a vigorously gestural technique inspired by his boxing career, which involves dipping his boxing gloves into paint and punching onto a large canvas.

Among his successful exhibitions, ‘Breaking Through Milan’ in 2016, curated by the renowned Luca Beatrice; Hassan's solo exhibition "Do Ut Des" (Give to receive) opened during the 57th Venice Biennale 2017 in the 10th century Chiesetta della Misericordia in Venice. Hassan’s last fatigue has been the solo exhibition “Sottosopra”, opened from the 23rd February to the 28th March 2020 at the PAN, Palazzo delle Arti, in Naples, Italy.

CRIS CONTINI CONTEMPORARY

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London W1K 4DS

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e. info@criscontinicontemporary.com

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