AMANI
MOUSSA

My work explores the tension between the weight of ideas and concepts and the limits and the opportunities of various mediums and forms. As a trained printmaker, I think a lot about how traditional mediums carry meaning beyond what is perceived as a historical genre or style. To me limits actually create possibilities of new ways of thinking about what can be generated and what can reveal unexpected visual and material meaning. I see that most clearly in my work in printmaking, as a medium laden with potential, where physical configurations generate possibilities and alternatives in seeing and understanding the work. And it is between the process and its development that my ideas and interest in my subject is in direct dialogue with the medium. I am also interested in the way digital mediums open up different trajectories to access the work and relate to it, and I find the fusion between conventional mediums and digital ones an exciting and fruitful merger.
I believe a significant part of any artistic practice is the ability to observe and filter these observations through the artist’s own experience and artistic process. This has manifested itself in my work and my interest in challenging landscape as a genre, through which I try to reimagine other ways of understanding the surrounding environment and process my own observation of it. That is the city I live in and my relationship to it. I see the city as an indirect reflection of who we are and what we are. And the different kinds of relationships we have with each other, is also manifested in how we relate to the city we live in. As such themes of urban density, social conflict, destruction and fragmentation of urban fabrics,...etc have all been part of an ongoing process of trying to understand my own relationship to the city and what I observe.
This also extends to the idea of shifting lens or focus, where I also try to understand personal experiences and interests through different genres and styles. For example, some of my work involves portraiture or figure drawing. This change of medium and focus involves a certain speculative turn, where my work is not just observational or a reflection but rather also a proposition to imagine things differently and to think about them in alternative and new ways. This conversation between a certain experience and a certain interest in formal elements (be it painting, printmaking, collage,...etc) and the process by which the artwork evolves is the core of my practice. I am interested in exploring this with all the possibilities a medium can afford and invite the audience to think and imagine along.