From the Parlor Library — Allen Hansen
As part of Allen Hansen’s inaugural exhibition on New York Artists Equity’s Collector exclusive platform, Parlor, we present a selected section from an article written by NYAE’ Director Michael Gormley, “III: Abstraction, Utopia, and The Right to Roam.”
Hansen is a symbolist process painter; originally a Californian native, he studied under second generation abstract painters and minimalists at the University of California, Irvine in the late-1970s. A precocious talent, he was sent to New York on an internship with the Mary Boone Gallery, then an ascendant player in the burgeoning SoHo art district. He never left. He worked briefly as a studio assistant for Gary Stephan, dove into the punk music scene and actively exhibited his paintings until 1994. With the birth of his daughter, he became an ardent stay-at-home dad. His studio practice slipped away. Hansen recalls “I no longer knew what or even how to paint”.
Recuperative sojourns to the East End and the Jersey Shore saw a return to drawing—moody ink washes inspired by sulphureous sunsets and the scintillating light of crashing surf. The late works of Goya, Morandi and Braque provided further inspiration and a way forward. Hansen muses, “These works seemed so personal. It was as if these artists no longer cared about public opinion and were just working for themselves. I too needed to work for myself again and the numinous light effects I glimpsed on those beach trips, as an active force, stuck me as being as worthy a subject matter as any. There is a transcendence there…”
In “III”, Hansen shows three mid-sized canvases titled Coil #1, Coil #2 and Coil #, painted in grey violet shadowy tones. Their surfaces are split lengthwise with off-center painted and incised axes orbited by concentric spiraling lines (likewise painted and incised) echoing nature’s favored forms—the funnels of storms, the turn of seashells, the sweep of capes across bays. The works are at once modern and archaic; a skilled painter, Hansen exploits the numinous viscosity of sedimented layers of oil paint to effect dense surfaces activated by a highly charged chiaroscuro technique. Evincing no less than a battle of light against dark, Hansen’s rhythmic symbols trigger totemic associations, the visual code of pre-lingual rituals. Crudely painted, incised and painted over again, the symbols alternately submerge and rise above the canvas surface. Hansen adds, “I think of them as scars.”
The canvases, now imagined as ritualistic initiation sites, and appearing to be actively split into left and right precincts, trigger compare/contrast reactions. Our eyes shift rapidly from left to right and back again to gather information and to impose order. Light effects, and subtle shifts in color and texture, become heightened and our tracking movements soon replicate the mapping of the spiraling lines. We circle the composition and decode its totemic patterns, taking due note of the “is/is not” juxtapositions that produce a palpable tension which in turn activates a visual field pushing against imposed polarities. Yet, we sense this field to be infinite in possibilities as evinced by countless shifts in form, tone, and an emanating light reminiscent of Tintoretto. The restriction is the human condition implied by the rhythmic ebb and flow of the mortal coil—a scar on the divine.