in the hear of the wood

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In the heart of

the woodHany Armanious is an artist whose work synthesizes

old world magic with post modernity and in the

process comes up with something startlingly

original. Andrew Frost spoke to the artist.

Photography by Stephen Oxenbury.

154

First published in Australian Art Collector,

Issue 38 October-December 2006



156

There is an undeniable beauty in much of what he makes but it would

be wrong to assume that the magic Armanious conjures is a Disney-

esque twittering of fairy dust; in fact, it is the complete opposite.

w w w . a r t c o l l e c t o r . n e t . a u

There is something at the centre of Hany Armanious’s work that’s a li

disturbing. In conversation, the artist refers to Carl Jung’s theory of

collective unconscious and its subjective realm of archetypes, to Car

Castaneda’s concepts of a mastery over awareness and transformations a

to something called the “pixie spirit”. Some writers have seen in Armaniou

work an alchemical relationship between materials and outcome while oth

see a complex recursive language of reiterative forms. Whatever angle you t

on Armanious’s wide ranging practice, there is indeed something magical

its core. There is an undeniable beauty in much of what he makes but it wo

be wrong to assume that the magic Armanious conjures is a Disney-esqtwittering of fairy dust; in fact, it is the complete opposite. It is elemental a

dark, pitched with a very particular sense of self-deprecating humour.

Armanious’s work deals with themes of commonality, partly spiritua

nature, yet grounded in the basic stuff of life. Recent shows such as Intelli

Design at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney and his work in the Balnav

Foundation Sculpture Project 2006 Adventures with Form in Space at the

Gallery of New South Wales, presented a highly accomplished practice t

encompasses these themes into the metaphoric realm of sculptural for

Throughout Armanious’s practice there are a series of recurring motifs – ve

cal and repeated forms, negative spaces, detritus, all of it bound up in

implication of discreet processes, like a machine turned back on itself. Talk

to the artist about the ideas that prompt these motifs, he is reluctant to co

mit to an overall hypothesis of what his body of work is about, or indeed, th

all these things really do reoccur, saying instead that each work prompts

own ideas and implications. “That’s all the stuff of sculpture, analogies of l

– grappling with the simple fact of our being here,” says Armanious.

The Balnaves work included a large sculpture called Central Core Compon

from Centre of The Universe [2005] a potter’s wheel mounted on a stand that w

Above: Installation view of Hany Armanious’ The danger in

extracting meaning , 2006 (foreground) at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery,

Sydney. Snow, guts, electricity, 170 x 82 x 60cm. COLLECTION: MICHAEL

BUXTON, MELBOURNE. COURTESY: THE ARTIST ANDROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY, SYDNEY.

Right: Hany Armanious, Finding the Assemblage Point (Clay Pipes

from ARABBA) , 2004. Clay, wax, cotton, acrylic varnish, dowel and

steel on form-ply and steel, 155 x 100 x 90cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST

ANDROSLYN OXLEY9GALLERY, SYDNEY.





158 w w w . a r t c o l l e c t o r . n e t . a u158

“That’s all the stuff of sculpture,

analogies of life – grappling with the

simple fact of our being here.”

Hany Armanious, Forging the Energy Body (Swegypt),

2004. Pewter, chromed aluminium, plaster, adhesive

stickers, brass, LCD monitor, spray enamel and silver

marker on form-ply and steel, one-off video, filmed on

digital camera, screening format DVD, 30 second loop

with original “ARABBA”* music, 154 x 117 x 90cm.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST ANDROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY, SYDNEY.





itself mounted on balls, all of it holding up a large, elegantly turned and tower

object that pressed against the ceiling. How does the potter’s wheel work in the co

text of the entire sculpture? “The potter’s wheel is a primitive way of creating a fo

and a structure by asserting your creative will,” says the artist. “Transforming ea

into something perfectly symmetrical and pleasing. A lot of my work is about

creative act itself and its aspirations. The wheel is the oldest symbol for people

Earth: a circle with a dot in the middle as a symbol for our existence within the u

verse. It sounds hippy dippy embarrassing, but there’s no hiding from it.”

Armanious, born in 1962 in the Egyptian town of Ismahlia near Cairo, moved

Australia when he was six and a half years old. He had an early interest in music a

drawing while displaying an aptitude for pulling apart vacuum cleaners. “I recen

realised that fact about my childhood fascinations as I’ve been pulling things ap

again to make moulds and casts of them … and I had this sense of doom that I wgoing to wreck them.”

Don Mannix, a family friend, helped Armanious discover contemporary art wh

he was still in high school and he was already a prodigiously talented painter w

a keen interest in Australian Modernists Tony Tuckson and Ian Fairweather wh

he attended City Art Institute [now University of NSW’s College of Fine Arts] in 19

“Art school was a complicated time because I was exposed to a whole lot of n

stuff but I was trying to stick to my own thing,” he recalls. “That created some c

flict with some of my lecturers and in the end they thought it would be best if I w

left to work through it myself.” The next few years after graduation in 1984 w

fraught. “At that time, when I was struggling with painting, I remember saying


Above: Hany Armanious, Assorted Muffins , 2003.

Expanding foam, pigment & paper, variable dimensions.


Right: Hany Armanious, Central Core Component from

Centre of the Universe , 2005. Various media including

wax, form ply, pewter, clay, peppercorns, foam,

polystyrene, plastic, 360 x 120 x 120cm. COURTESY: THE

ARTIST ANDROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY, SYDNEY.

The wheel is the oldest symbol for people on Earth: a circle with a

dot in the middle as a symbol for our existence within the universe.

It sounds hippy dippy embarrassing, but there’s no hiding from it.”

160






“At that time, when I was struggling with painting, I remember

saying to [artist] Tim Schultz, ‘I love painting but I don’t know

what to do with it. How do you apply it? Where does it go?’”

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[artist] Tim Schultz, ‘I love painting but I don’t know what to do with it. How

do you apply it? Where does it go?’”

The next decade would prove to be a period of intense productivity. What

was the impetus that helped him find his direction? Any doubts for the artist

were allayed by The Readymade Boomerang, the 1990 Biennale of Sydney curat-

ed by Rene Block that offered an historical overview of avant garde art from

the Surrealists through Fluxus to contemporary European and American art.

“That Biennale made me feel a lot more relaxed about what was possible,”

he says. “I remember going back to my studio and thinking it’s ok, that I can

get rid of everything. So long as I had a clear space in which to work, I could

start again.” Over the next decade Armanious established himself as an artist

whose work ranged across mediums including sculpture, photography,

installation, drawing and painting. His work was included in a number of

exhibitions both in Australia and overseas – his work was seen in curator

Tony Bond’s Boundary Rider Biennale of Sydney in 1992, Perspecta in 1991 and

1993 and the following year his work was included in the prestigious Aperto at

the Venice Biennale. In 1998 Armanious became a Moet e Chandon fellow.Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA) is about to stage M orphic Resonance,

a survey of past and present work. It will also be the first time Armanious’s

work has had such a wide ranging overview. How does he feel about putting

all his work together? “The IMA show will be an attempt to engage some

newer works with some of the older pieces,” he says. “It’s great to have the

opportunity to get a whole lot of stuff out of storage and various collections

and have some serious fun.” I

From 21 October to 24 November Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art is stag-

ing Morphic Resonance, a survey of Hany Armanious’s past and present work.


Above: Hany Armanious, Selflok , 1994-2001.

Hotmelt, mixed media, dimensions variable.

COLLECTION: THE GOVETT-BREWSTER ART GALLERY.


Left: Hany Armanious, Selflok , 1994-2001. Hotmelt, mixed

media, dimensions variable. COLLECTION: THE GOVETT-BREWSTER ART

GALLERY. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY9GALLERY, SYDNEY.



in the hear of the wood

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