Adam Hisham Ismail

Adam Hisham Ismail (b.1980) is an Egyptian/Australian artist whose practice echoes the mechanics and broken narratives of dreams and the elastic nature of memory. Mediating an uneasy conversation where the familiar and the strange intersect, his work has been described as “an anticipation of sound and kinesis”.    

Using flagrant pageantry, animal archetypes and idiolectic mythology, Ismail creates a series of formal and conceptual conundrums which invite the audience to construct their own narratives. Recent projects have expanded his work into more ambitious areas of sculptural installation, both in terms of scope and scale: theatrical landscapes set in vivarium-like display cases. Composite set buildings influenced by these installations are the basis for an ongoing photographic series. The works are steeped in personal mythos and speak about the human condition at large, the power environment has on its inhabitants, and of the fugitive beauty of fear, desire, and survival within it.