Alan Corkery Hahn and Esther Solondz

May 7th - May 31st, 2009

Opening Reception:  Thursday, May 7th, 6-8pm

Gallery IMA is pleased to present a two person show featuring Alan Corkery Hahn and Esther Solondz!

Alan Corkery Hahn, Car Bomb, Paper, Thread, Mixed Media, 5 x 9 inches

Alan Corkery Hahn weaves whimsy and cleverness into his “needlepoint doodles.”  Using the pages of used books as his sketchpad, the Seattle artist finds inspiration by stitching new stories into old ones.  The tales he tells are universal, exploring the complexities of life in an ironically simple and unfussy graphic style.“This work deals variously with the following topics—text and its fluid meanings, the primacy of human touch, authorship/ownership and art as a commodity, Wabi-sabi and the aesthetics of imperfection, personal identity, gender roles and subjectivity.  … There is a continuous return to the notion that our marks contain the illusory promise of permanence beyond ourselves.  Is that enough?  Ultimately, that is all we have.”

Alan Corkery Hahn has enjoyed success both in the Pacific Northwest, with collections at the Nordstrom and the University of Washington, as well as internationally.

Esther Solondz, Jules Bouchet, Mixed Media, 41 x 29 inches

As an accomplished photographer as well as a painter and sculptor, Esther Solondz understands the power of good presentation.  Her fearless experimentation knows no bounds and, to her, anything and everything has the potential to be her next artistic endeavor.  Her most recent curiosity has taken her in the direction of salts, rusts, and soaps – corrosive materials with particular transformative properties, providing the organic element of unpredictability to her results.  “My work is very process oriented and I am often invested in how I am making them as much as what it is I am making.”  In her debut showing at Gallery IMA, Solondz focuses on the head, ghostly portraits in rust that invoke nostalgia and an inkling of familiarity.

Esther Solondz has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including three Rhode Island Arts Council fellowships and a New England Foundation for the Arts regional National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.  Her work has been widely exhibited and reviewed over the last twenty years in solo and group shows at museums and galleries throughout the United States.  This is her first exhibition with Gallery IMA.