"Impact of Mindful Awareness - Assemblage" Artwork

Biography: Michael Athanasius Hanna (born 1983) is an interdisciplinary lens-based artist working across photography, creative writing, photographic assemblage, glass assemblage, and moving-image. He is originally from Jersey City, New Jersey and has been creating art since the age of eight. His exhibitions have included features across the United States and internationally in London, Paris, and Rome. The works of Michael Hanna typically use arthouse documentary methods of capturing unfamiliar and enchanted sensory experiences through conceptual integrative and interdisciplinary practices, often infused with the use of philosophical as well as poetic texts. Michael has been published by The London Group, Saatchi Art, The New York Times, Hartford Courant, Daily Record, and The Jersey Journal. He works out of his art studio located in the New Jersey Shore and has been serving as the Editor & Curator of Point Pleasant Publishing since 2014. Statement: My practice is lens-based at the core and interdisciplinary in nature. Spanning photographic assemblage, glass assemblage, moving-image, creative writing, and arthouse documentary photography, my work uses integrative methods, both with experimental use of materials and combining disciplines, to create compositions which speak to the purpose of contemporary identity in the digital era. The photographs and use of creative writing which are integrated throughout the works explore unusual sensory experiences containing enchanted and ethereal connotations. From capturing the textures of glowing neon-colored coral with clownfish and other forms of aquatic life to the ominous presence of an empty ballroom in a luxury hotel to the light particles emanating off sunlight, lamps, and street lights on to the streets and linen-wrapped interiors, my practice is based on identifying experiences which has the viewer question their illusory experiences and environments. One of the most important components of my work is there is no post-production editing to any of the raw images. In my photography, photographic assemblages, moving-images, and photo-based works, the photographs have no digital alterations, enhancements, or effects. For example, even though my photographic assemblages have images combined and texts added in Photoshop, the photographs themselves are unaltered.