Her latest work has grown quietly in its ambition, shifting more and more towards abstraction because the figurative elements develop into much less specific. “After I was youthful, it was form of like, Look what I can do, look how fairly this may be, how acceptable. Right here’s somebody holding a handbag.” She smiles. “The ladies within the work are getting increasingly inside. I’m not attempting to clarify the whole lot. I can set the stage, put the music on, mild the candles, however I feel individuals have their very own skill to dissect what they need from artwork.”
Regardless of describing this as the toughest physique of labor she has ever made—partly as a result of she initially began it for a present at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea gallery, which then closed—the work Hahn reveals me from her studio in East Williamsburg are assured, robust, and interesting. There are undercurrents of Mark Rothko, Christina Ramberg, and Philip Guston.
Plenty of the ladies in these work are within the technique of changing into reasonably than full, Hahn explains. One is imprisoned. One is constructed up on pink legs, has a tank-like torso, a pushed-back head, and a pink field that Hahn refers to as a skirt being pulled over the central kind. One other is about in opposition to a saturated, pure orange—Hahn’s favourite shade—holding a protecting stance. “A buddy of mine mentioned, ‘it appears like she’s in a straight-jacket.’ Oh, God, it’s not that, however it’s positively one thing the place they’re placing their fingers up and saying, ‘I’m right here. I’m sitting right here and I’m inside myself.’”
