Something that started as a sort of introspective engagement with family and moving home and maybe gender and turned over the course of ten or so relatively brutal weeks into a desperate and successful bid to play in earnest with things that make me happy (Untitled in three acts)
Acrylic, joint compound, crayon, house paint, and film transfers on doors Something that started as a sort of introspective engagement with family and moving home and maybe gender and turned over the course of ten or so relatively brutal weeks into a desperate and successful bid to play in earnest with things that make me happy (Untitled in three acts) is a work that literalizes the act of storytelling. Abstract forms and found textual elements function in the same way those elements function in theatre—grappling with and for the attention of the audience, holding briefly and relinquishing back to the fullness of the narrative. Archetypes of character and place become confused with earnest representations of identity until the two are synonymous for one and other. The scale, the gestural movement, and the literal forms found in the work evoke Works Progress era murals and the decades of innovative painting that followed. The style of abstraction is engaging both with Helen Frankenthaler’s field works, and Joan Mitchell’s playful abstractions. The visage of the artist informs and engages with new dialogues burgeoning in response to rigid modernist theory. Coined as empathist theory, the work is deeply interested in the relationships that art has with context—explicitly the context of the work, the positionality of the artist, and the context of the viewer. Similarly, the hybridity between art space, theatre space, and text space highlights the untapped potential of interdisciplinary work. The relationships that function simultaneously through the piece vibrate with a myriad of interconnected energies. Working as a scenic designer, painter, and carpenter directly influenced the scale of the work, and the text elements are pulled from a found journal that documents theatre lesson plans. The turning point of this piece was the introduction of realistic eggs. A return to joy—intentionally and without faltering—breathed new life into the work and simultaneously allowed a deeper and more enjoyable engagement from an audience. The engagement with the piece is one of both reverence and play. The viewer circumnavigates the piece, following a walking pattern that is at first distant, then intimate, then cyclical as the act is repeated on the other side. This circling is a playful one, as the joy of an art object—evoked explicitly on the back through a huge egg on a yellow background—engenders childlike engagement with the work. Following this work, I intend to set out making a series of books. These books will be composed predominantly out of abstract works, ceramic eggs, found objects, and whatever else arises, collaged as pages, but meant to be “read” in the same direction and pattern of a traditional book.
Milk Carton No. 2 4'6"x2'6" Watercolor and acrylic on raw canvas
Egg Study in Black and White 4'x4' Acrylic, drywall Primer, water color, and crayon on raw canvas
M A D D E N S T U D I O
Haley Hartmann Dilate Your Own Eyes, Hold Your Breath, I Love You November 20th, 2020 43 ¾” x 48” Acrylic on canvas
DILATE YOUR OWN EYES, HOLD YOUR BREATH, I LOVE YOUis a work that attempts to reckon with the rupture of forced displacement caused in March by the pandemic. Figures were painted into abstraction as an attempt to engage with the act of making meaning in fields of undefined space. The figures themselves are pulled from film photography taken during a father-daughter road trip completed at the end of July. The text is a series of lines collected from poetry written by the artist around this period. The style of abstraction is engaging both with Helen Frankenthaler’s field works, Joan Mitchell, and Clyfford Still. The mediums are acrylic, drywall primer, spackle, crayon, and rubber cement.
Haley Hartamnn Study of Portrait of a Little Girl by Frank Duveneck October 2020, 30” x 36” Acrylic on canvas
Haley Hartmann, Rauschenberg Warhol Study, September 2020 29 ½” x 22 ½” Watercolor, masking tape on Watercolor paper