LIANA HAKIM

My practice is grounded in process and material negotiation. I hand-make every element of my work, building surfaces slowly through accumulation, disruption, and reconstruction. Clay is shaped, fired, fractured, and reassembled. Oil paint and glaze are layered until the surface carries weight and depth.

I am drawn to materials that originate in the elements, earth, fire, pigment, wood, and to the physical dialogue that emerges when they are pushed, resisted, and reworked. Rather than refining toward polish, I allow irregularity, texture, and tension to remain visible. The surface becomes record.

Growing up within Lebanese and Greek heritage has shaped my sensitivity to inheritance and continuity. I am interested in how identity is layered rather than declared, how structure holds complexity, and how presence is built over time.

Scale is central to my work. Large formats allow the pieces to operate architecturally, shifting the atmosphere of a space rather than functioning as decorative objects. Grids introduce order, while gesture disrupts it. Fragmentation and cohesion exist simultaneously.

Each work becomes a negotiation between control and surrender, permanence and fragility, density and light. Entirely hand-formed, the pieces carry the trace of process — physical, layered, and grounded.

I live and work in Europe.