Hand-Fetish-Projects® is an artist-run studio working in the space between fine art and applied objects. We design and produce art pieces in editions: fine-art quality, but made for daily life.
We stand between two poles of contemporary art — on one side, theory-heavy, speculative “assets” that often neglect form; on the other, memeified images reduced to hype symbols, bought to perform a persona. Both poles have their merits: theory can be genuinely deep, and memes can be sharply iconic, but in both cases form is usually treated as a vehicle for something else rather than the work itself. Distilling these two extremes, we focus on the core: form. The whole history of art is built on people who thought through line, volume, colour, and rhythm first; nobody seriously denies the force of those who mastered form. Yet somewhere in this century, as galleries and curators kept asking for “new” concepts and ever-fresh narratives, form quietly lost its seat. It was pushed behind statement and symbolism.
Hand-Fetish-Projects® tries to put it back in front, letting line, posture, and surface do the thinking before any text does — whether or not the contemporary art world cares. People like to say an artist works “for themselves,” but most artists today work for two groups: the gallery system and/or the crowd. Hand-Fetish-Projects® works first for ourselves and for a small group of people who are wired the same way. Fortunately, the technological age gives us a way to do exactly that: we can reach you directly through a screen and bypass the gatekeeping power of traditional galleries. That’s why, on this site, you’re seeing a visual language that almost no contemporary gallery would consider “valuable”, yet it matters deeply to the artist — and, if you’ve made it this far, probably to you as well■
We create for one kind of viewer only: someone who buys art simply because it speaks to them, not to look sophisticated, not to prove they are different. Our viewers, like our artist, are drawn to what most people overlook or even find “odd” — details at the margins of the world. Those are precisely the things both sides want to stay with and examine, almost in a fetish-like way. In those moments, it is the finesse of visual language that opens the easiest door between them■
In practice, some things are deliberately standardized: we work with high-grade materials, careful lines, clean casting, and high-resolution printing on quality paper. At the same time, we allow certain things to drift: a slight shift in tone from piece to piece, tiny variations in colour or surface that come from real work rather than strict calibration. These irregularities are not flaws; they are the record of a hand at work, and the distance between a mass-produced product and an artwork you can actually live with■
Our collection
⟼ Art Objects
These are multi-material works built from artist-made molds in the studio. We don’t treat “one-of-a-kind” as a virtue in itself; in fact, we deliberately replicate our pieces. Most works are cast in small batches from those molds and then hand-finished. The point is not to worship uniqueness, but to hold two things together: an almost industrial level of control and a surface that still looks and feels expressive. Keeping that tension alive inside a controlled process is already a kind of value for us. We focus on contemporary, highly functional materials such as epoxy resins and other composites, with ceramics appearing in more limited quantities■
⟼ Daily Art Objects
This line adapts our studio imagery into day-use pieces — small “daily art” objects and printed items meant to live in your hands, on your desk, or in your bag. Production happens mainly in our own studio, with selected partners where necessary, but always under our direction. The goal is not mass merch, but to let the work spill into everyday objects while keeping the same sensibility and control■
⟼ Printed Editions
Most of our limited-edition prints start as working drawings for daily art objects, not as “finished artworks”. The artist later builds them up with added symbols, concepts, and details — a reversed, non-traditional process that fits the Hand-Fetish-Projects® mindset. The result is a series of vivid, pop-surreal (lowbrow) images where sensuality, a slight bite of satire, and a touch of nostalgia sit in the same frame■
A note from the artist—founder
I often feel like I’m made of contradictions, both as a person and as someone who makes things. I don’t like most of what trends online, yet I keep watching it and quietly stealing from its gestures. If a piece of mine doesn’t reflect anything I see in the world, it feels pointless to me; at the same time, I care almost obsessively about form. I was genuinely shocked when I first learned about conceptual art — not because it was so deep, but because it often felt absurd in how seriously it took itself■
In theory, “beautiful” and “meaningful” shouldn’t cancel each other out, but the art world often treats them as opposites. I started Hand-Fetish-Projects® partly to practice those two things side by side. The “brand” is, at heart, an ongoing project to make objects that are allowed to be a little ridiculous on the surface and genuinely sharp underneath. I don’t think my work has any grand duty to anyone else; it matters to me because it records how I see things — and because it’s a test of whether I can actually live off the kind of art I want to look at, instead of just talking about it■
Phạm Hoàng Đan (Gối)
