Rahmi Hamzi is a multidisciplinary artist. Her latest painting and sculpture works are born from her examination, deconstruction and reconstruction of botanical shapes, creating associations to the human body, femininity and sexuality.
2023 year exhibited in Biennial Find out more
In addition Hamzi produces sculptural works and installations, related to ritual objects and religious texts– which are physically and conceptually manipulated by the artist to evoke new signification. Botanical images enable her to deal with these thorny topics and convey her stance and critique; she also employs flowers in her work to raise questions about women’s traditional role and the expression of their sexuality. Indeed, flowers—recognized as the sexual organ of plants– provide a suitable analogy for this cause because their stages of development serve as apt representations of human development, reproductive capacity, provision of nourishment, and more. As Hamzi reminds us, flowers are not only symbols of fertility and fecundity that allow her to discuss, challenge, and question socio-cultural attitudes toward women; they also serve to emphasize the close links between humans and the natural landscape. This, too, she tethers to the local context and her biographical background. Representing native plants, she also, perhaps more subtly, calls attention to the local political context.
Hamzi has participated in a number of exhibitions: Idris’s group exhibits “ Nathera”, in both Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design-BAAD Gallery, Tel Aviv (2018), and Al Markaz Contemporary Art Gallery East Jerusalem (2019); “Trespassing”, The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem (2020); “Jafnah”, Beit HaGefen Gallery, Haifa (2020); “Palestine Arum”, Umm el-Fahem Art Gallery, Umm el-Fahem (2021).
Liverpool Biennial 2023
‘Parasite’ (2021)
Rahmi Hamzi’s painting, ‘Parasite’ (2021), emerges from her examination, deconstruction, and reconstruction of botanical shapes, creating associations to the human body, femininity, and sexuality. The artist utilises botanical imagery in order to address contentious topics and subtly convey her stance and critique, employing flowers to raise questions about women’s traditional roles and the expression of their sexuality.
Although Hamzi’s work draws on the long-established tradition of flowers as a symbol of gender, eroticism, and reproduction, it is imbued with ideas derived from her upbringing. Growing up in a community where women interact with nature on a daily basis, waking up at dawn to tend to plants used for nutrition and medicine, Hamzi draws on flowers as an alternative means of
Rahmi Hamzi’s painting, ‘Parasite’ (2021), emerges from her examination, deconstruction, and reconstruction of botanical shapes, creating associations to the human body, femininity, and sexuality. The artist utilises botanical imagery in order to address contentious topics and subtly convey her stance and critique, employing flowers to raise questions about women’s traditional roles and the expression of their sexuality. Although Hamzi’s work draws on the long-established tradition of flowers as a symbol of gender, eroticism, and reproduction, it is imbued with ideas derived from her upbringing. Growing up in a community where women interact with nature on a daily basis, waking up at dawn to tend to plants used for nutrition and medicine, Hamzi draws on flowers as an alternative means of expression and extended metaphor for her attitude towards Islamic notions, her conception of femininity, and her approach to social pressures and the delimitation of gendered roles. Showing at Tobacco Warehouse
‘Parasite’ (2021)
Showing at Tobacco Warehouse
Wednesday - Sunday 10am - 6pm
Liverpool Biennial
