Art: Adam Hahn portraits

LONDON GRIP

online exhibition

FOCUSING THE GAZE

the portraits of

ADAM HAHN

Children & Delia November 2007;

MD & Georgia 6 June 2008

Albert, 2007. Oil on canvas. 100x120 cm.

Billy, 2003. Oil on canvas. 45x52 cm.

Delia, 2005. Oil on canvas. 80x100 cm.

Francesca, 2005. Oil on canvas. 30x40 cm.

Angel of the North - Tristan, 2005.

Oil on canvas. 20 x 25 cm.

At the core of the long tradition of western portraiture is the novelty of eschewing the narrative of the tableau for the sake of a complete encounter in the single gaze. The work of Adam Hahn, still in his twenties, makes reference to this heritage partly through his technical attention to detail and partly through his bold switches of scale - ironically, given this onscreen context - evident only in gallery exhibition. There is his gesture on the one hand towards antique miniaturism as in Angel of the North, and on the other towards contemporary advertising in the metre high canvases of inquisitive children, tousle-haired youths, shirt-sleeved businessmen, or contemporary knights of the realm.

Hahn's almost-bare palette quotes from the more sober schools of early photography while nodding to contemporary movements antagonistic to literalism and the figurative. The apparently effortlessly constructed surface simulacra and straight-to- camera positioning of each subject in the frame acknowledge a debt to the cool severity of his minimalist predecessors.

What marks his work in particular is the uncanny intensity below his surfaces, a sense of something inappropriately, aggressively intelligent and mysterious in his subjects’ glance askance, or their return of the gaze to the viewer. After his historical referencing, his searching technique, his reticent palette and his adventurous play with scale, it is the exploration of the thought behind the gaze which identifies a painting as one of Hahn’s.

P.M.

Commissions

2007 Anthony Salz

2007 John Rose

2007 Lord Dennis Stevenson

2007 Simon Robertson

2007 Sir Crispin Davis

2007 Sir William Castell

2007 Tom Glocer

2006 Sir James Crosby

2005 Divia Lalvani

2004 Alexander Stevenson

Awards

2004 Chaville Fund for Young Artists, France

2002 Richard Ford Award, The Royal Academy, London & The Prado, Madrid

2002 Artist in Residence, St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, Glasgow

2002 Apthorp Fund for Young Artists, London

2000 Winner, Emerging Artist Award, Glasgow

Collections

Frisiras Museum for Contemporary Painting, Athens, Greece

Glasgow Museum and Art Galleries

Apthorp Foundation, London

Chaville Foundation, France

Exhibitions

2008 Portraits of Macular Degeneration, Menier Gallery, Southwark, London

2008 Portraits of Macular Degeneration, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent

2005 Intimate Relations, Woburn Art Gallery, London

2005 Face Value, Chelsea Art Gallery, Palo Alto, San Francisco, USA

2004 Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London

2003 Los Amos, The Arts Centre, Hertfordshire

2003 Headstrong, Bedford Row, London

2003 Anthropography, Frissiras Museum for Contemporary Painting, Athens, Greece

2002 Our Choice, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

2002 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London

2001 New Generations, Compass Gallery, Glasgow

2001 Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London

2000 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London

Education

1998-01 Glasgow School of Art, BA Hons Fine Art

2000 Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design, Prague

Residencies

2001-2002 Artist in Residence at St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, Glasgow

2002 Prado, Madrid

Georgia, 1-6. Oil on canvas. Various dimensions.

PORTRAITS OF

MACULAR DEGENERATION

Adam Hahn’s most recent exhibition once against concerned itself with the gaze. This was an exhibition of paintings of people as if seen through their different levels of macular degeneration, a condition which causes deterioration of the central focus of vision.

Twice a recipient of the BP Portrait Award hosted by the National Portrait Gallery, London, Hahn had a year in which to research MD. With the assistance of The London Project to Cure Blindness, he spent time with patients suffering from the condition, and gathered data at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology. He used his research to direct these paintings.