Van Hanos
My work engages a fundamental duality: a full embrace of painting, despite my ambivalence about its limitations as a live and contingent medium; and exchange of artworks as a way to produce new meanings.
In my practice the work is only (temporarily) complete while shared with others. This completion manifests as creative collaboration. Just over a year ago I showed a series of works at West Street Gallery, an apartment space operated by friends and colleagues. Each work in the show was made specifically as a gift for a person who have supported my direction and/or contributed to my imagery. To stress the incompleteness of this project, each image was a detail of a previous larger painting. I am including images of works from this show, as well as subsequent drawings and paintings that partake in that image database.
Another example of the changing relationships between works is presenting here in two works, both titled “Candle Maker’s Lamp”. (2008 and 2012) They are part of an life long cyclical project, accounting for growth every four years.