PAINTINGS
EARLIER PERIOD (1988 - 1996)
"The first paintings of Hassan’s youth depicted traditional subjects – the static profile of a young Bedouin girl wearing a mask, with a water jug on her head; a still life with everyday Omani artefacts such as clay pots. Later, the pots in one work would sprout a wilderness of lines creating havoc with the composition. In another, the pots took on a dynamism that sent them flying through the air as if on their way out of the painting. It was becoming clear that Hassan Meer would be no ordinary artist" - Dr. Patricia Groves
EARLY PERIOD (1997 - 2008)
"When Hassan Meer enrolled in the Fine Arts Program at Savannah College of Art and Design, Savanna, US in 1998, he had engaged in brief experiments with Cubism. Finding his way on canvas in a wilderness of infinite possibilities, the Artist discovered a natural affinity with the ideals of CoBrA, a European avant-garde art movement formed in 1948 by experimental modernist artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam who worked spontaneously and drew inspiration from children’s drawings, and the work of the famous avant-garde twentieth-century painters, Paul Klee and Joan Miró.
Meer’s work in the period following his encounter with CoBrA seeks to discover and transform nascent aesthetic tensions by rendering them in abstract architectural metaphors expressed visually and brought into temporary equilibrium by structural arrangements and child-like markings" - Dr. Patricia Groves
MID PERIOD (2009 - 2017)
"Art to me is a language, and a medium through which I seek to discover the state of human and the contradiction, he undergoes in the midst of cultural and civilization conflict. I attempt to link some of these elements and symbolic concepts shared among the various cultures. In our present day and with the sharp upheavals and fluctuations our societies experience, I realize the paramount importance of experience and research employing new tools and artistic devices that are more capable in portraying and expressing contemporary issues. I employ what I call ‘ the conceptual seed ‘ or the art that is based on a concept or an idea making use of video art photography. The experiment is developed on basis of realities i.e. not to experiment in abstract. During the last few years, I directed my experiment towards a unique mélange of both the personal and the general experiences i. e. between personal and general memories and recollections.” - Hassan Meer
LATE PERIOD (2018 - 2020)
“My work is a contemplation of, and a search for, the spiritual domain and the magic rituals bequeathed to us from ancient times. Since my childhood in Oman, I have always thought and wondered about the powerful effects of these mysterious traditions in controlling and directing human life. In my work, I create and obscure symbols of spirituality just as they were revealed and then hidden from me as a child. The blue appears in my works as a symbol of invisible spirits from my hometown.
My work relates to the Levant , its beliefs and legends. It narrates my pondering and questioning of death, the mortality of man and examine other local prevalent rituals. Since my childhood, here in Oman, I have always thought and wondered about the powerful effects these mysterious legends have in controlling and directing the course of man’s life” - Hassan Meer