New Mexico

EVOKE Contemporary introduces an exhibition of paintings by Haley Hasler on November 6^th with an opening reception 5pm – 8pm.  The exhibition runs through November 30. Hasler will be in attendance to unveil her meticulously detailed self-portraits which are elaborately conceived narratives on truth, illusion and identity. Drawing upon Renaissance compositions, Hasler herself is the central figure that presents her audience with all the details of contrived circumstance. Many of Hasler’s scenes pose a frenetic level of activity with obsessively detailed scenery and ‘set design’. With the artist ‘in character,’ the scene is set for theatrical illusion in which the heroine is master of her circumstances. In the artist’s words, “While the self-portrait implies that the artist is showing us the truth, a representation of the exterior in disguise conveys the impossibility and doubleness of this endeavor.”

“Through the seemingly private world of self-portraiture and autobiographical narrative, I hope to present a compelling fictive world, without dictating a precise narrative or relying on a static symbolism. I try to invest the figure with an iconic confrontability – making it operate both a self-portrait and archetypal heroine. At the same time, the narrative aspect of the work is meant to subvert the strictly iconic mode – once again, conveying the questionability of a painting’s claim to truth.

The theatrical aspect of my work is deliberate, to emphasize the painting’s connection with artifice and enactment. I conceive of a painting as a kind of theatre – a stage set for my characters and protagonists. Through the shallow, receding stage-like space, I wish to emphasize the unreality and illusion of a painting, which contradict its paradoxical appearance of reality.”  Haley Hasler