The intent behind creating this website was not merely for the sake of having a traditional online portfolio, but equally as important to me was establishing my own space in my own little corner of the world wide web where I can reclaim my true self and rediscover my creative origins in an era of algorithms and trends.
Spanning the course of a little over a decade from 2008-2020, I was active on a lot of the major social media and creative platforms (DeviantArt, Behance, Flickr, Society6, VSCO, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter - now X, & Tumblr) growing as a creative across many disciplines under the name "Art Apparent"; inspired by one of the late great Kobe Bryant's nicknames "Air (Heir) Apparent" which was in reference to Michael Jordan's nickname "Air Jordan".
In my context, the name defined my connection with the world and how I had always reflected it in all aspects of my life — seeing the creative and beautiful details in everything, dissecting them in real-time. Whether it be a brushstroke, a verse of poetry, a stand-up comedy routine, a brilliant tracking shot, crisp animation, a stepover move, or a crossover dribble — the "art" was apparent.
Gradually, I started leaving each platform as I outgrew them, and ultimately Thanos snapped all traces of "Art Apparent" off the face of the internet (search results now show a jewelry store...with my same logo concept but in calligraphy style, yikes). I had to heavily manipulate algorithms on many of these platforms to create the experience I wanted, but the chaos was always around the corner and my creative drive was dwindling. I went from creating to consuming, and although I always enjoyed my time, content became redundant and empty of meaningful quality (with exceptions) — I had to step away from the circus in order to take control and ownership of myself and my work from third parties and trends.
It was also as much of a spiritual decision as it was creative, as I found the distractions to be increasingly damaging. Though I have since returned on a number of them, primarily as another point of contact for others to be able to reach me.
In any case, here is the next iteration, Hassan al-Hejazi, a return to my roots (name derived from my place of birth in the province of al-Ḥijāz, Arabia), and an attempt to replace all the platforms I left behind with one central hub of creativity and personal discovery, my own little space to decorate as I please.
