Elizabeth Hazan: Are you from around here?
March 28 - April 27, 2014
Opening reception: Friday, March 28th 7-9pm
Janet Kurnatowski is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new abstract paintings by Elizabeth Hazan in “Are you from around here?” Hazan is represented by the gallery. The exhibition will run from March 28th till April 27th, there will be an opening reception for the artist on Friday, March 28th from 7-9pm. There will also be a poetry reading on Saturday, April 5th at 5:30pm by Adam Fitzgerald and Emily Skillings. All events are free and open to the public. The gallery will be closed on Sunday, April 20th in observation of Easter.
Hazan’s paintings are reinterpreted landscapes of her travels, drawn from memory. “On the walk to my Brooklyn studio, the brightly printed neighborhood maps are present at almost every street corner and the contrast between these simplified flat diagrams and the actual jumble of the hectic city is something I find endlessly fascinating. Both influence memory. The relationship between the experience of travel and visual representations of landscape has become central to my work.” She re-creates her experiences of her environment using shape and color, and positive and negative space. Her approach begins with her constructing an aerial view of a landscape by layering colored, shaped papers on her studio floor. “Retaining some pure shapes, such as squares and triangles allows me to set up formal relationships that are the dynamic of geometric abstraction, and helps create a dialogue between rational and invented forms. These collages lead to paintings where I become both cartographer and painter, invoking both kinds of navigation: that of our experience and in the reproduced substitutions that maps represent.”
Hazan has recently participated in exhibitions at Storefront Bushwick in Brooklyn, Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn, Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, Rockford Museum of Art in Rockford, IL, Rahr-West Museum in Madison, WI and Hofstra Museum in Hempstead NY. Other professional honors include a residency at Yaddo in 2012 and a Skowhegan Fellowship in 1991. For more information or images please contact the gallery.
Hazan’s paintings are reinterpreted landscapes of her travels, drawn from memory. “On the walk to my Brooklyn studio, the brightly printed neighborhood maps are present at almost every street corner and the contrast between these simplified flat diagrams and the actual jumble of the hectic city is something I find endlessly fascinating. Both influence memory. The relationship between the experience of travel and visual representations of landscape has become central to my work.” She re-creates her experiences of her environment using shape and color, and positive and negative space. Her approach begins with her constructing an aerial view of a landscape by layering colored, shaped papers on her studio floor. “Retaining some pure shapes, such as squares and triangles allows me to set up formal relationships that are the dynamic of geometric abstraction, and helps create a dialogue between rational and invented forms. These collages lead to paintings where I become both cartographer and painter, invoking both kinds of navigation: that of our experience and in the reproduced substitutions that maps represent.”
Hazan has recently participated in exhibitions at Storefront Bushwick in Brooklyn, Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn, Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, Rockford Museum of Art in Rockford, IL, Rahr-West Museum in Madison, WI and Hofstra Museum in Hempstead NY. Other professional honors include a residency at Yaddo in 2012 and a Skowhegan Fellowship in 1991. For more information or images please contact the gallery.