Andrew Hahn
25 Feb - 02 Apr 2006
ANDREW HAHN
"Blood Pictures"
IBID PROJECTS is pleased to present our first exhibition of work by the American artist Andrew Hahn. Hahn has previously used the medium of watercolour to explore images that reflect popular culture or dark rural scenes. The new series Blood Pictures returns to the notion of inverting the watercolour genre and presents gruesomely detailed paintings of murder scenes. As his source material Hahn uses video stills as well as photographs of real murder victims. Always cropped, each watercolour focuses on a particular element of the crime scene; a blood spattered hand, a wound turning slowly black, the peaceful face of a dead girl. These works seem to almost revel in this gory quality disrupting the viewer’s state of mind with an onslaught of death. Yet these tightly controlled and coldly worked images retain a very definite sense of the exquisite despite their macabre subject matter.
The bloodied corpses of Hahn’s watercolours have a definite restful quality to their vacant faces. Their smooth and youthful skin is meticulously considered and formed carefully as the peachy flesh tones turn slowly to greys and blues. Bruises are painted as they begin to emerge from under the skin and delicate rivers of blood trickle and dry across otherwise peaceful faces. As viewers we are presented with an ethereal beauty that has its very focus on carnage. It is this unexpected juxtaposition between the disturbing and the exquisite that makes these works at once so unsettling and interesting. Hahn’s images are deeply disturbing because they find such tangible beauty in such gruesome violence.
Andrew Hahn lives and works in Los Angeles. He completed his Masters in Fine Art at the California Institute of the Arts in 1996. Hahn has since had a number of solo shows in California and Paris, as well as being involved in several group shows in New York. Blood Pictures at IBID PROJECTS is his first solo show in London.
For more information or images please contact the gallery on +44(0)208 983 4355 or email info@ibidprojects.com
© Andrew Hahn
Blood Picture No. 8, 2002, watercolour on paper,
23 x 28 cm
"Blood Pictures"
IBID PROJECTS is pleased to present our first exhibition of work by the American artist Andrew Hahn. Hahn has previously used the medium of watercolour to explore images that reflect popular culture or dark rural scenes. The new series Blood Pictures returns to the notion of inverting the watercolour genre and presents gruesomely detailed paintings of murder scenes. As his source material Hahn uses video stills as well as photographs of real murder victims. Always cropped, each watercolour focuses on a particular element of the crime scene; a blood spattered hand, a wound turning slowly black, the peaceful face of a dead girl. These works seem to almost revel in this gory quality disrupting the viewer’s state of mind with an onslaught of death. Yet these tightly controlled and coldly worked images retain a very definite sense of the exquisite despite their macabre subject matter.
The bloodied corpses of Hahn’s watercolours have a definite restful quality to their vacant faces. Their smooth and youthful skin is meticulously considered and formed carefully as the peachy flesh tones turn slowly to greys and blues. Bruises are painted as they begin to emerge from under the skin and delicate rivers of blood trickle and dry across otherwise peaceful faces. As viewers we are presented with an ethereal beauty that has its very focus on carnage. It is this unexpected juxtaposition between the disturbing and the exquisite that makes these works at once so unsettling and interesting. Hahn’s images are deeply disturbing because they find such tangible beauty in such gruesome violence.
Andrew Hahn lives and works in Los Angeles. He completed his Masters in Fine Art at the California Institute of the Arts in 1996. Hahn has since had a number of solo shows in California and Paris, as well as being involved in several group shows in New York. Blood Pictures at IBID PROJECTS is his first solo show in London.
For more information or images please contact the gallery on +44(0)208 983 4355 or email info@ibidprojects.com
© Andrew Hahn
Blood Picture No. 8, 2002, watercolour on paper,
23 x 28 cm