excerpts of an interview with Hannah Manfredi
I strive for the object to be conflicted in its periodization…
I incorporate multiple references, summoning a thing that moves freely about and is both familiar and alien. - Ruby
from current show at the suburban.. 2011
A lot of your work looks like something familiar but it’s not quite it. Can you talk about this?
Maybe this familiar atmosphere is created because the work alludes to, and incorporates canonized forms and tendencies (from classical art to modern “masters” of the 20th century, a few mentioned above) and there is a distinct way we relate to those special types of objects.
But, my interest is in developing a language of my own, through mingling these various quotations.
My current mode includes an ever-expanding range of references, classical art and antiquity being possibly the most obvious. A few other influences: I also love Picasso’s concrete sculptures. The rendering quality in my recent work is looking to Matisse, as well–particularly his portraits (like “Madame Matisse”) in which subjects’ eyes are black and zombie-like. I often appropriate patterns from this book of textiles from the Wiener Werkstätte (a Viennese production community of visual artists around the 1920’s). I pull down my fashion illustration reference books fairly often, too.
I’m super inspired by Louise Nevelson, and her monochromatic assemblages. I strive for the object to be conflicted in its periodization…I incorporate multiple references, summoning a thing that moves freely about and is both familiar and alien.
2008 foam core, hot glue, acrylic paint
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