Bashaer Hawsawi

Practicing art is practicing life

Bashaer Hawsawi used to decorate her school when she was young. Art is embedded within her life and will remain so, for it has always been. For Hawsawi, practicing art is practicing life. Working with mixed media and found objects, Hawsawi’s works center around notions of cultural identity, cleansing, belonging and nostalgia.

Since her early life, Hawsawi has been experimenting, drawing on materials from her surroundings, which she adapts and reshapes to create her works. Hawsawi uses all her senses to understand her environment, allowing her body to mingle with the sense of place. From here, invisible pathways form, along which the artist creates an artwork, which is then born into reality. Her early experiences growing up in a lively environment have given her a vast visual database which she uses to inject her artworks with seamlessly intertwining nostalgia and presence, formed by the renewing cycles of daily habits, no matter their century.

Using papyrus to convey the temporality of memory preservation

The history of papyrus extends back to the first human need for transferring written knowledge from one generation to another. This required creating a storehouse of knowledge that could be easily controlled and preserved from loss. The first of these stores was papyrus. The study of the Arabic papyri reveals a vast amount about the history of Islamic civilization in Egypt in general but also of local knowledge particularized in some cities and villages. In her work ‘Qanfager’, one of the many names for papyrus (Al-Qanfajr), Hawsawi uses papyrus to convey the temporality of memory preservation. Created from nature, papyrus has lifecycles entwined with its past as part of a tree to its endless transformation as a vehicle of knowledge. The artist conveys her intellectual and emotional reflections to the works by using coloured inks of varying degrees over the layers of papyrus. Sometimes these colours are striking and vibrant, and sometimes they are hidden by the papyrus itself. The more explicit the use of colour, the closer one is to confronting themselves, to facing reality honestly and openly, and continuing their search for truth.

In testament to this enigmatic use of colour, Hawsawi’s work is a bold oxymoron in practice. Interacting with historical and cultural heritage nourishes the mind of the artist and enriches her inventory. Working with colourful African cloth and vibrant red brooms in Cleansing, Hawsawi constructs a work based around ideals of disinfection and its consequences. By contrasting actions of removal and disposal, complete erasure, the cancellation and nullification of dirt and filth with notions of cleansing and purity, Hawsawi questions the socio-cultural effects of erasing cultural history. The diversity of culture, the richness of civilizations and nostalgia, as well as cleansing, human suffering, emotion and sensation orbit each other through Hawsawi’s evolving practice.  

Text by Constance Chester

Every natural event in its cosmic nature indicates an ephemeral ending and discontinuity. The sun, its absence, the moon, its absence, human beings, their death, the sea and its end.

Bashaer Hawsawi

Biography Bashaer Hawsawi

born 1992 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Education

2020 Online Fundamental Creative Program at the Misk Art Institute, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2020 Open Call for Emerging Saudi Artists, virtual training program at the Ithra Museum, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

2019 Hayy Learning at Art Jameel, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2015 Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Ceramics at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Exhibitions (selection)

2021
The Secrets of Alidades, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, Saudi Art Council, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Blurring Lines, Misk Art Institute – Masaha Residency Showcase, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2020
Shara Art + Design Fair, with Hafez Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Intersect Aspen (virtual edition), with Hafez Gallery
Under 32, Mono Gallery, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Tizar, Haidar Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2019
Shara Art + Design Fair, with Hafez Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Galleries at MAS by Abu Dhabi Art, Hafez Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE (SOLO)

2018
Shara Art + Design Fair, with Hafez Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
MNWR, with Hafez Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Concepts, Tasami Creative Lab, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2017
Islamiat, Nesma Art Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Mobdeaat, Nesma Art Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Minha & Fiha, Tasami Creative Lab, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2016
Fiesta 1000, Arabian Wings, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Grants, Scholarships & Residencies

2021 ISTIKSHAF programme by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Jeddah, the Saudi Art Council and the Goethe-Institut

2021 Art Residency Misk at Misk Art Institute, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2020/21 Art Residency Al-Balad, Ministry Of Culture, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Image Credits: Portraits by Samar Jabr