HABIB

Although born in Southeast London, my Sierra Leonean and Lebanese heritage usually feeds directly into my practice. Through the exploration of identity; I aim to convey a sense of empowerment to marginalised minorities.

I look to start an ongoing discourse confronting socio-political issues, specifically regarding the perception of various demographics as being of lesser humanistic value. With the disenfranchised often being undermined by mainstream society; which somewhat paradoxically reflects an archaic hierarchy of status similar to colonial ideologies.

Using antique texts and maps as the canvases for my works has been a constant within my practice. This process of re-contextualising ephemera creates a cohesion between the concepts informing the work and the aesthetic output. As I empower various figures; I simultaneously do so with the ground used as I place them within new contexts. Usually using myself or family members as the subjects of my portraits creates a sense of immediacy apropos to navigating the intersection of my western upbringing and my familial African culture.

Regularly drawing with ballpoint pen enables me to call upon traditional draughtsmanship techniques, influenced by sketches from the high renaissance. Through an almost contradictory process of using this relatively modern art medium with a classical approach to mark making: I look to celebrate authentic drawing within the digital age.