Hany Armanious


Hany Armanious is an Egyptian born, Australian artist who lives and works in Sydney. Armanious produces installations and sculptural forms, as well as paintings and drawings.

Life and work

Hany Armanious was born in Ismailia, Egypt and migrated to Australia with his family at the age of 6. He completed his schooling in Australia and holds a Bachelor of Arts Since 2019 he has been Head of Sculpture at the National Art School in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. In the early nineties Armanious considered a ‘key figure’ in a number of artists who critics noted as being influenced by the grunge movement.
Although born in Egypt and conscious of its cultural ties, Armanious’s work does not specifically reference that culture. He has been described as an artist who can 're-describe objects' using ‘poor materials’. As his practice has developed Armanious has achieved this goal through making moulds of ordinary objects and replicating them as parts of completed works. As Armanious has himself said, ‘…my interest in casting partly grew from a technique in my painting that utilized contact prints. Casting is like three-dimensional printmaking.“ Casting has now become central; to Armanious’s work and a ‘key strategy’ that allows him to bring almost any object that catches his eye into the studio and via casting to the exhibition space ‘refiguring elements and processes both literally and metaphorically’. In constructing and assembling his cast sculptures Armanious infuses and even ‘exploits’ the humorous potential brought to play on his work through the human need to find meaning within complicated and even abstract forms - the isomorphic condition that prompts us to find images and meaning in inkblots, clouds and other abstract combinations. The success of this idea can be seen in Australian art critic Rex Butler's descriptions of three plastic shopping bags Armanious presented as the work Ladybug in 1993. Butler looks at the work and questions whether they resemble a green skirt and white blazer, inverted pantyhose, or perhaps ‘a man crucified head down and arms wide like St. Peter’.

Exhibitions

Armanious has shown with a number of dealer galleries and currently exhibits with Michael Lett in Auckland, and in London. He has also shown with Foxy Production in New York, and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples and the in Paris.
Selected exhibitions in public art institutions:The Readymade Boomerang; Certain Relations in 20th-century Art 8th Biennale of Sydney. 1990 Artistic Director René Block focussed on Duchamp and the power of the readymade on 20th century art.Perspecta Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 1991 Curated by Victoria Lynn.The Boundary Rider 9th Biennale of Sydney. 1992 Artistic Director: Anthony Bond.Wit’s end Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney. 1993 Curated by Kay Campbell. Aperto ’93 at the 45th Venice Biennale 1993. Directed by Achille Bonito Oliva.Plastic Fantastic Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. 1993Aussemblage Auckland City Gallery, New Zealand. 1994Johannesburg Biennale South Africa. 1995Möet and Chandon Touring Art Prize National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 1998 Touring all state galleries. Armanious was the 1998 Fellow. Armanious was also included in the 2000 edition of the Möet et Chandon Fellows Exhibition at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.Hammer Projects: Hany Armanious Hammer Museum Los Angeles. 2001Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968 – 2002 National Gallery of Victoria, 2002 Federation Square, Melbourne.Bloom mutation, toxicity and the sublime. Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand. 2003National Sculpture Prize 2005 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 2005Hany Armanious: Artists Project Auckland Art Gallery. 2005Before the Body-Matter Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne. 2006Uncanny Nature Australia Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne. 2006 Curated by Rebecca Coates.

Note

For a full list of Hany Armanious exhibitions go

Collections

Awards

1998 Moët et Chandon fellowship
2004 Artist in residence, Elam School of Fine Arts International Arts Residency Programme, Auckland.