Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
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STATEMENT OF WORK
I have, since a young age, been fixated on documenting all aspects of my and my friend’s lives, especially at our most intimate and vulnerable, with the purpose of witnessing the truths that arise, and allowing my subconscious to lead what is expressed through my lens. When reflecting on my practice, I always return to the word ‘empathy.’ My work primarily engages with how trauma manifests, whether it be around particular subcultures in New York or the Palestinian and Arab-American diaspora. I approach my subjects with a deep sense of care, which I find many people (specifically men of color) rarely receive either in or out of the context of being photographed.
This sense of care is exemplified most in my series “Hard Feelings” (2015-2024), which was prompted by a childhood friend of mine's sudden passing just a week after we reconnected. My grief-stricken obsession caused my practice and life to become one and the same, as all boundaries between myself, my friends, and my camera dissolved. The diaristic and comprehensive documentation of the male dynamics within my circle, a gang of Queens skaters and graffiti artists, unveiled to me how trauma manifests within contemporary masculinity when negative emotions are repressed, particularly personal and collective grief in relation to addiction, violence, and self-destruction. Through trust, my friends—themselves part of a lost generation—bore their scars and tears to me as affirmations of their existences.
There is a conversation within my images that exists outside of space and time. It is part of an overall practice that engages with intimacy, manifestations of trauma, the shadow self, and the multitudes of identity. This dialogue reflects a humanism that is intercultural, intergenerational, and tethered by the oneness of our shared suffering. My Palestinian heritage taught me that grief and empathy go hand in hand. My work began innocently as a record of truth. 'Empathy' transformed it into something deeper: a space for men of color to face their own shadows. I want my work to harbor and reflect healing and hope for those willing to engage with their hard feelings.