An Interview between Abigail Cain (EIC) and artist Hassan Abu-Judom. Find Hassan’s work here.

AC: How do the fantastical and vibrant elements of your work manifest themselves in your individuality?

HAJ: Both my pieces, Pitted Olive Wishes and Descendant of Sehretunar come from a similar background being tied to Middle Eastern/Palestinian culture. The main difference is the fact that one defined a real world experience and the other shares a taste of mythology.

AC: Where do you find artistic inspiration and what processes do you use when creating?

HAJ: I find artistic inspiration through a self portrait sense. For as long as I live, I’d always want to be tied with my art work as a symbolic legacy. I pick apart my art work’s subjects and symbolisms like naming limbs on a body. My main process for creating my work always comes from treating my sketchbook like a diary when it comes to jotting down reoccurring thoughts or dreams and then I associate these subjects with iconography to make a puzzle-like composition to tell a story for the viewer. Sometimes, However, inspiration through other artists like Ed Roth, Frida Khalo, or Roy Litchenstien always refreshes my love for vivid, lowbrow masterpieces. 

AC: Tell us a little bit about the pieces in the digital museum. 

HAJ: Pitted Olive Wishes is a political statement on the genocide happening in Gaza, Palestine. Being Palestinian-American myself, I grow bleak of my people becoming martyrs and victims of cruelty. Yet those in Gaza share a strength and hope I’ve never seen before. There’s a well-known symbol in my culture in Palestine where an olive tree resonates with hope or peace. I see this as a haven for martyred angels to rest their halos on each branch of the olive tree as a wish for a day where Palestine can be free. 

Descendant of Sehretunar is another Middle Eastern story, rather more on the mystical side, about how a heartbroken jinn named Sehretunar was born with 4,000 faces and a male jinn of her kind broke her heart and resulted her losing control of her contained 4,000 emotions. What was once her main face of love was now a face of numb neutrality.