Hazziza Abdullah
Contact Information
Gallery
Please contact artist for purchases, commissions, etc.
Photography
Artist's Biography
Hazziza Abdullah was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BS from Lincoln University, PA in Visual Arts. She received her MFA in Photography from Temple University, Tyler School of Art, PA. Abdullah's work has been displayed at Galarie Marie, NJ and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY. She teaches Digital Photography and continues to use her photography to give voice to people who often do not have one. Abdullah uses her photography to address social issues and challenge societal stereotypes often manipulating darkness and light. She also often incorporates moving image pieces into her work.
Artist's Statement
I investigate the different ways that Black women are often represented and seen, and how Black women sometimes see themselves. I’m interested in unconventional displays of beauty that challenge and counter the distorted imagery of Black women based on a Eurocentric gaze. The very process of Black girls becoming women involve assaults upon femininity, labor entitlement, and definitions of beauty.
The work in this exhibition investigates "the talk" — a conversation that Black mothers often have with their daughters to ensure that they will be equipped to function in a world that is not always kind to Black women and girls. The project also allows daughters to examine and consider how prepared their own mothers were to face these challenges and to allow Black women to be "seen " within her complex history.
Photographs that manipulate darkness and light in coordination with specific features capture dynamic parts of the whole beauty that is the Black female. Pairing photographs and videos in the same space allows the subjects full autonomy over how they are represented. Exploring issues such as representation, colorism, and parenting, my work seeks to counteract what is projected onto Black women, asking the viewer to recognize the eternal life that Black women's bodies and souls carry: their beauty, vulnerability and female humaneness.
Selected Exhibitions
Paintings displayed at the Selena Gallery (LIU) via MoCADA and Schomburg Center
Solo
2018
Massai series, Galarie Marie, Collingswood, NJ
2017
Senior Exhibition, Ware Center Gallery, Lincoln University, PA
Beauty is Power, series, Galarie Marie, Collingswood, NJ
2016
Blue Man photograph, Galerie Marie, Collingswood, NJ
Group
2016
in Constellation, Ware Center Gallery, Lincoln University, PA
2015
ORIGIN, Ware Center Gallery, Lincoln University, PA
Publications
Artwork featured in two books published by the Schomburg Junior Scholars Visual Artists
Professional Experience
2020 - Present
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Professor, Photo I
2019
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Teaching Assistant, Photo I
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Teaching Assistant, Lighting
2017 - Present
Freelance Photographer & Videographer
2015 - 2017
Lincoln University, PA
Ware Center, Collections Assistant
Awards & Certificates
InLiquid, Philadelphia, PA
Wind Fellowship, Recipient
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
University Fellowship
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Teaching in Higher Education Certificate
Lincoln University, PA
Gift Assistance Visual Arts Scholarship
Lincoln University, PA
Outstanding Visual Arts Award
Lincoln University, PA
Outstanding Photography Studen Award
Education
2020
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
MFA, Photography
2017
Lincoln University, Oxford, PA
BS, Visual Arts
Magna Cum Laude