Is it the paint that defines a painting, or is there something more? Artist Hannah Bielman, whose work was recently exhibited at Cup Cup in New York, creates works on canvas that transcend the traditional boundaries of what is and isn’t a painting. Masu. you are my flavor profile Mix and match flowers, metal hangers, clothing, balloons, and more to paint. Another piece incorporates a full body form of his noodle and his pair of sneakers. It’s a stuffed animal. A loaf of bread. One of my favorite Biermann works. Sparkly pitafulfills its nominal promise.
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Bielman’s work has been likened to picking up on flypaper what’s going on around him, and while it can feel a bit chaotic, that’s part of the fun. Perhaps “unlimited” is a better word. Her studio, shown in snippets in her Instagram photos, has a similarly busy vibe. I can imagine artists picking up their paints and brushes and creating a frenzy of daily happenings depending on their mood.
Poet Eileen Miles said: “This is a very dangerous process, tearing apart a painting to see what’s inside.” And what Bielman shows us is that a single painting (or a mixed-media work, if you prefer) can contain many things: a conversation, a relationship, a biography. That’s it.literally thing It defines us and what we wish we were not. It’s complex and it’s beautiful, but certainly it’s also something incredibly human, so it’s probably not for everyone.
The Observer caught up with Bielman to talk about what she’s doing now and what’s next.
The word “mixed media” alone doesn’t accurately describe what you do. Why did you first start embedding the remains of life into your work?
The sense of crisis I feel while painting has led me to include objects within my reach and field of vision as a mass of paint itself. Things have evolved significantly since then.
In a sense, your painting is not an image of you, but a self-portrait of your life. Is there anything you would like to convey about yourself in your work?
There is no particular message that I want to convey to the audience. But I hope there is a sense of freedom and room to breathe for the confusion and play, loss and pathos that painting evokes. I also hope that this painting has room to catalyze connections and ideas in the viewer’s head and heart that lead to their experiences as people who lived, felt, thought, and survived.
Can you tell us about your process? How does your gathering come together?
I work on many pieces at the same time and they are all usually developed together on the floor. Experiment with surfaces, cut out, and reposition them using paint, fabric, and other found materials. I’m interested in dizziness and sadness, panic and resolution, color and despair, tension and play.
I think your work has the potential to be quite polarizing because it subverts the concept of painting. Does the perception of your work ever influence what you put out into the world?
Ideally, when I’m in the studio, I try to focus solely on the work, the experimentation, and the process, rather than critiquing or commercially evaluating the work.
If you had to make a guess, how do you think your work will evolve in the future?
I hope that my work continues to change and evolve in unexpected ways and surprises me.
