Artists

Hany Armanious

Press release

Hany Armanious (b. Ismailia, Egypt. Lives and works in Sydney, Australia) is a sculptor whose work deals with the transformation of one material into another. Starting with modest, found objects from the domestic world, Armanious follows a convoluted process to create duplicates, or ‘distillations’ of these originals, creating a mould and then a near-identical cast of his starting subject. Presented as standalone forms or as accumulations of several different objects, his sculptures toy with the notion of originality and the dependability of the physical world to learn or be a manifestation of truth. Enduringly playful, Armanious’ works also prod at the legacies of modern painting and sculpture. His sculpture practice throws into question any certainty of knowing the world through its things, while unravelling the experience of encountering objects for the very first time.

"The highly skilled casting Armanious practices and the idiosyncratic, completely original take on what art can be and mean, are energising. His work pushes at the idea of surface itself. What lies beneath an exterior we think we can read so easily? What is the difference between real and not real, and why does it matter? How can the physicality, the tactility of sculpture remind us of the quiet beauty and playful humour of the things we barely look twice at? Armanious’s work doesn’t answer these questions, but it asks them in a way that allows us to accept that the answers might come in feelings, intuition and embodiment rather than words. No wonder it’s so hard to describe how astonishing it is."
- Eliza Goodpasture, The Guardian, 2024

Armanious has exhibited widely throughout Australia, Europe and United States over the past two decades, including representing Australia in the 2011 Venice Biennale with his exhibition The Golden Thread, later touring to MUMA, Melbourne.

In 2024, Armanious' first solo institutional exhibition in Europe, Stone Soup, opened at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, UK, touring to Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, opening November 2025, and accompanied by a jointly produced publication. A solo show will take place at MCA Sydney in 2026.

Other selected recent solo exhibitions include Acheiropoieta and Hany Armanious at Fine Arts Sydney, Australia (2022 and 2021); Frequently Asked Questions, Southard Reid, London, UK (2016); Pavilion sculpture commission for City of Sydney, Australia (2015); Selflok, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2014); Fountain, sculpture commission for Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2012); The Oracle, Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, USA (2008); The Centre of the Universe (Central Core/Hard Core/Soft Core), Auckland Art Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand (2004); Selflok, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2001). Selected recent group exhibitions include Day/Night, Southard Reid, Old Folks Association, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand (2021); Caught Stealing, National Art School, Sydney, Australia (2019); Future Eaters, MUMA, Melbourne, Australia (2017); Mutatis Mutandis, Secession, Vienna, Austria (2012).

Work by Armanious is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Aotearoa New Zealand; Dakis Joannou Foundation, Athens; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.