Hany Armanious

Hany Armanious holds a Bachelor of Arts from the City Art Institute (now known as UNSW Art & Design).

Born in Egypt and having migrated to Australia at the age of 6 with his family, Hany Armanious has been heavily influenced by the visual cultures of his place of birth and the country he would come to call home. In his 2005 exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Armanious' installation 'Turns in Arabba' (now held in the AGNSW Collection), incorporated a wonderfully strange undercurrent bringing together 1970s pop sensation ABBA blended with Middle Eastern and Scandinavian visual sensibilities. At the time Armanious said he was harking back to powerful influences from his youth – recalling his coming of age in Australia in the early 1970s while living as member of a newly arrived migrant family.  

Well known for his installations and distinctive sculptural forms, Armanious describes his work as “duplicates of eclectic, everyday objects presented in a gallery, thereby turning them into fine art.”

Armanious’s artwork is widely exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. He represented Australia in The Golden Thread at the 54th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2011). His selected solo exhibitions include Selflok, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand (2014); we go outside, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2013); The Golden Thread, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2012); Fountain, MCA Sculpture Terrace commission, Sydney (2012); Birth of Venus, Foxy Production, New York (2010); Uncanny Valley, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2009); The Oracle, Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis (2008); and Morphic Resonances, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand (2006–07). Selected group exhibitions include Busan Biennale, Korea (2007); National Sculpture Prize, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2006); and Selflok, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2003).