Biography

Hisham Ismail (b.1980) is an Egyptian/Australian visual and sound artist. Born in the UK and having lived between Cairo, Egypt and Australia during childhood, Ismail settled in Western Australia at age 5. His practice echoes the mechanics and broken narratives of dreams and the elastic nature of memory. Reconstructing places and scenarios from his childhood, teasing out half remembered, half manufactured scenes from foreign lands, his sets and tableaus feel hybrid and imaginal. Cultural mythology and faux-origin stories permeate the work and help to untangle the sometimes- conflicting, always ‘’giving’’ position of living a bi-racial experience in Australia.