Born in 1979, Hamza Bounoua is an Algerian visual artist. He studied at the Fine Art Institute in Algeria. His practice is centered in multidisciplinary art, blending his Islamic, and Arabic heritage with contemporary aesthetics. He often chooses Arabic calligraphy as his main subject, stretching and challenging the traditional techniques and narratives of the original form in his work to transform symbols into objects. His works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Bahrain, Kuwait, Algeria, the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, and Qatar, as well as in New York, Canada, Bosnia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. Bounoua’s works have been acquired by several prominent galleries and museums, including the Museum of Dafen for Contemporary Art in 2020, and the Algiers Museum of Modern Art, where he had a special solo exhibition celebrating the opening of the museum in 2008 at the request of the Algerian Minister of Culture.
Bounoua has received important awards in Kuwait, Algeria, France, and Belgium. For his achievements in Arabic calligraphy, he was awarded the “Mohammed Abdulmohsen Al-Kharafi Prize for Modern and Contemporary Arab Art,” in Kuwait (2006) and “The Ecume Prize,” from the French Cultural Group. He was honored as a jury member for the “Sharjah International Art Calligraphy Festival,” in the UAE (2016) and organized the “International Arab Gathering for Fine Art,” in Doha (2018.) He also founded the “Diwaniya Art Gallery” in Algiers (2020) and organized group exhibitions for prominent and emerging Arab artists (2021 and 2022.) He currently works as Curator of the International Festival of Contemporary Art “IFCA” in Algeria