"I was raised by my Moroccan-Egyptian and Tunisian grandparents in Los Angeles. They were of Jewish faith. My mother worked – frequently more than one job – to support us, so she wasn’t there for the parts of my childhood that were enjoyable. She just continually sacrificed her time and energy to feed my face and the capitalist machinery of this country at thankless, hourly wage jobs, lining the pockets of Republican bosses.
My grandparents were more or less socialist and compassionate. In their generation, people in the francophone world without much knowledge of China really admired Mao Zedong, largely on anti-colonial principle, especially at the time of the Algerian War for Independence. For that and other reasons, I learned Chinese from very young and eventually became a journalist in China. I didn’t have the right visa to practice journalism there, so I eventually had to come back to the U.S., and encountered a lot of people in my reporting across the country and in other countries I visited for several media outlets. These people, my grandparents, the news and a general simultaneous love and resentment of humanity are what guide my art practice. All of the above frequently feature in the paintings – sometimes all at once. And sometimes, I go off the rails and paint something that makes me laugh. "
Massoud Hayoun interviewed by Nour Daher.
The full interview can be found here: Afikra interview with Massoud Hayoun
