Rahim Hamid

A Collection of Politically Relevant Happy Little Accidents

Artist Statement

I have had to move from country to country while always returning to my home of Pakistan, leaving a lingering sense of detachment in myself and my work. I break things gently, leaving blank spaces in my paintings and taking parts out of my sculptures, leaving them whole and incomplete. The abstracted spaces around representational images act as expressions of the conceptual and literal holes in myself, in the world and in creating a better world. I thus try to make a space for myself within my art to speak about my memories, colonization, authoritarianism and a sense of un-belonging I have felt throughout my life. My art engages with alienation, grief, institutional critique and an exploration of the self to make sense of the chaotic places I find myself in.

My use of both two and three-dimensional mediums stems from these concepts, creating a negative abstract space for myself and a positive "real" space to satirize, criticize, and display plainly humanity, myself and political structures worldwide. It is through this interrogation that I paint myself, as young and of the "Third World", into contemporary art to speak to realities for people like me.

Contact for Inquiries: arahimhamid03@gmail.com

Curriculum Vitae

Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Computer Science - Carleton College

Group Exhibitions

• RosaLux Gallery - Open Door - 2024
• Rumriver Art Center - Deconstruction/Abstraction - 2024
• Northeast Sculpture - Closed Door, Open Field - 2024
• Carleton College - Tablemaking Showcase - 2024
• Carleton College - Art and Robotics Showcase - 2023

Work Experience

• Emerging Artist Fellow - Northeast Sculpture - Jun to Aug 2024
• Art Collection Research Assistant - Perlman Museum - Sept 2024 to Present
• Sculpture Studio Monitor - Carleton College - Jan 2023 to Present
• Graduate Intern - Beaconhouse National University - Jun to Aug 2022

Writing

- Art in a time of crisis

- My art display was vandalized

- In Defense of Modern Art

- We Live Under Dead Haze and Starless Skies

- Away From Home As It All Burns Down

- My Grandfather's Final Rest

- Objects, Sentimentality, And Letting Go