About the Artist
Hilal (Lalo) Hibri is a premier contemporary multi-media sculptor motivated to create art that is not only aesthetically beautiful, but stimulates reflection on the intersection of nature, technology and the human experience.
Lalo grew up around glass, watching his father (doctor and glass artist, Nadi Hibri) score and break glass shoes into tiny pieces that he would later assemble and fuse and slump. He did not seriously consider creating art himself until he complete the requirements for his B.S degree at Wake Forest University early, allowing him to study strictly studio art throughout his fourth year. After graduation, he jumped on an opportunity to be an apprentice to Portland-based glass pioneer Linda Ethier. Soon after, he realized that he fundamentally wanted to use his passion for nature and geometry to create beauty, rather than pursue medicine or the natural sciences.
As he envisioned the infinite possibilities he could imagine no other medium that could match glass. Lalo's creative wanderlust has led him from pate de verre vases to cast crystal jewelry, and from negative relief wall pieces to large abstract sculpture.His new Augmented Reality series capitalizes on elegant efficiencies in the design and fabrication processes allowing him to seamlessly integrate human forms with organic and geometric designs. He is continually evolving and experimenting with new techniques to push the boundaries of his material - using the materials and processes appropriate to the project.
Lalo's recent installations include The Fractalarium, housed in the Hill Country Science Mill, and the Ametrine Empress chandelier hanging in The Bryan Museum. His art is currently being exhibited at the venerable Habatat Galleries in West Palm Beach and Gallery Biba in Palm Beach. In June 2018, Lalo opened Hibri Glass Gallery in his hometown of San Antonio, Tx to much acclaim.
Lalo is an artist with a passion for science. He uses silicone mold-making and multi-stage sculpting to deconstruct nature and technology into their geometric patterns and forms and then re-combine these symbols in vibrant and meaningful ways. His work ranges from cast crystal objects d'art to large-scale multi-media installations.
Lalo's first artistic influence was his father, his whole passion for glass led to forays into various techniques including kiln-casting, sandblasting and pate de verre. After being involved in installations at Burning Man, he became conscious of the effect of scale. The temptation of scale drew him to explore the possibilities of casting transparent resins and incorporating controllable led lighting.
Lalo's basic modality is to separate the creation of the basic form, the surface design, coloring and finishing into distinct stages. He draws upon an arsenal of silicone molds to make positive wax copies seamlessly integrate organic and geometric designs into the forms he sculpts, often in clay.
Lalo considers the transparency of glass and the sculptural versatility of casting to be uniquely suited to addressing the challenging social issues in our ever-changing world. Like nature, Lalo's visual style and technical processes are constantly evolving.
His latest works integrate the various natural and technological patterns that he is so captivated by in the context of the human form. "In the end, I want to express the impermanent and interconnected nature of existence by not only recreating the imagery that represent our reality in other media, but by augmenting reality to stimulate the viewer to contemplate and digest the symbols in a new way."