Despite the dark palette dominating her work, the Kuwaiti-born artist’s works illuminate the lives of her Murihiku subjects.
"Waiting for moments that reflected parts of me" was the approach Nour Hassan used in capturing photos and sketching vignettes for her work from the "Ephemeral" exhibition showing at He Waka Tuia gallery.
The Auckland-based artist was awarded the William Hodges Fellow artist-in-residence for 2024 and spent most of the year creating 12 works using a "messy painting" style that reflected her time in Murihiku.
"I loved coming back and seeing my Southland whānau, and the works that were inspired by them and the landscape.
"Invercargill is unique. I hope I was able to capture that in my work," she said.
The award-winning artist has created diverse, slice-of-life works that were sketched with charcoal, graphite and also digitally transformed.
She achieved a connection with her subjects which had transformed them from muses to personas, after taking photos of Murihiku locals including the Southland women’s Hinds rugby team, farmers and people from across the migrant and refugee communities.
Hassan hoped her time in Southland would enable her to "to produce work that moved the viewer".
After moving to Aotearoa from Kuwait with her family in 1996, she acknowledged the regular upheavals had shaped her as a person.
“Coming from an Eastern culture into a Western culture, my thing has always been about learning to adapt,” she said.
Hassan was chosen from a group of 18 applicants to the Southland Art Foundation.
The 37-year-old’s work is also part of the "Resonance" exhibition, which includes selected pieces from the Southland Art Foundation collection and showcases a variety of artistic perspectives that reflect Southland’s identity.
Her photographs captured a balance of intimacy and trust between herself and her subjects, which she said was the part she loved most about what she did.
Her 12 works will be part of the "Ephemeral" and "Resonance" exhibitions running at He Waka Tuia until January 19.
