hidell brooks is thrilled to start 2018 off with two unbelievable exhibitions by johan hagaman and jenny nelson. both artists have a strong sense of themselves through the exploration of their subject matter. they do not limit creativity but push though the boundaries to explore deeper into their subconscious. both bodies of new work are mature and strong firmly grounded in strong emotions.

jenny nelson attended maine college of art in portland, maine, and graduated with a bfa from bard college where she received a scholarship to the lacoste school of the arts in france. she has been living and working in woodstock, new york for 20 plus years. her early artistic training was focused on the classical and representational but it has always been her natural instinct to depict the surroundings in abstract forms. most of the paintings evolve as an intuitive reaction to her surroundings, be it interior space, inner space, or landscape. to evoke this kind of sensory memory in her work jenny applies many layers of paint, using gesture and an internal sense of color. traces of previous layers will remain visible, allowing colors to interact in ways they could not have anticipated. her compositions develop through a series of decisions that are both conscious and unconscious. with great sensitivity to these evolving colors and forms, a very personal abstract language emerges.

“my work has always been anchored in drawing. the years i spent studying drawing and painting from life instilled a strong sense of space and structure in my work. at some point i became more interested in the negative space surrounding the objects i was observing and i began modifying the objects themselves. very organically an abstract language developed, but the sense of structure and organization remained constant in the painting.

i apply paint in layers using palette knives, brushes and oil sticks. i initially draw loose gestures and a variety of spontaneous marks. often traces of previous layers remain visible, allowing colors to interact in ways i could not have anticipated. this process leaves me feeling quite lost a lot of the time, and i have had to learn to become comfortable with that feeling. this sometimes builds to frustration, and i will scrape off much of what was applied, but the result of doing this is often something wonderful that moves the painting forward.

i view the painting process as a collaboration between myself and the materials. a conversation starts that has a beginning and an end, but everything in between is unpredictable. it seems at first some exciting things may show up but it’s important to disregard these first, too beautiful bursts, work over them, and develop something deeper from them. As the painting evolves, shapes and lines solidify, and Iibegin to see how the parts affect the whole.

the process of layering, adding and subtracting, creates a kind of history on the canvas. shapes have a story to tell. lines that have been obliterated and resurrected over and over again have an emotional charge. the paintings that started as a wild party ends up as a contemplative carefully edited composition, involving precise modifications, while hopefully leaving the life force intact.

-jenny nelson 2017”

johan hagaman was born in jeffersonville, indiana, and earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in english from indiana university. after teaching english in the u.s. and in the peace corps in sierra leone, west africa, johan turned her love for stories and poetry into physical objects. she has work included in many public and private collections and museums such as the tennessee state museum and evansville (indiana) museum of arts and sciences. she is also the recipient of the tennessee individual artist fellowship for 2005. her sculptures are psychological in nature, exploring the stories and myths we create for ourselves to give us meaning. the work often depicts a figure embedded or entwined in some form of nature juxtaposed with rusted manmade objects, implying a larger story of the relationship between the interior landscape of the psyche and the exterior landscape of nature. johan lives and works in nashville, tn.

“it has been said that the act of observation is linked to the “reality” observed—that we can create our own reality. this has been an ongoing inquiry in my work: how we see— how we see what we want to see— and how this determines how we shape ourselves, and allow for what seeks to emerge. i am a collector of often unrelated and ambiguous images, poems, news articles, and ideas –not looking for anything in particular, but noticing patterns that seem to be informing me about my “reality”; and i try to process this by making something formal. being covered in vines or leaves—a metaphor that has become a dominate theme in my work for some time—is both about paying close attention to what is around us; and also about stepping back for perspective on how our level of focus determines how we shape our world, and are shaped by and tied to it in a circle of reciprocity.

-johan hagaman 2017”

in the third gallery we have a wonderfully curated group exhibition of new work by gallery artists including selena beaudry, page davis, herb jackson, scott duce, ron porter, mary rountree more, ruth ava lyons and virginia scotchie.

the southend gallery crawl is friday, january 5th from 6-8 pm. all available work is on our website under each individual artist's tab. please contact the gallery if you need any further information.