St. Louis artist Andy Hahn, displayed one of his newest modern abstract paintings from his Pixels series at the Art St. Louis XXXIV, The Exhibition. In it’s 34th year, this annual juried visual art exhibition features artworks in all media, all subjects, all styles, all themes, and all techniques. Juror Debra Drexler selected 35 artists out of 573 submitted artworks.
The exhibit ran November 10 through December 20, 2018 at Art St. Louis in downtown.
Artist Andy Hahn poses for a photo.
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Hahn’s newest work has both a funny and somewhat uncomfortable edge. As he explains, “It explores the dichotomy between what we express externally versus what we hold internally.” He continues, “I’m manifesting this mainly through words that are obvious and visible combined with partially obscured words in the textured surface. It’s a study on human nature and our need for validation and the perceived perfection in our lives, in conflict with our innate inability to be vulnerable and transparent, resulting in a clear contradiction between the two.”
Above: St. Louis artist Andy Hahn drops off art for The Current Hotel
Above: Abstract 027, acrylic on canvas, 50″ x 40″
Hahn uses texture and color to explore emotion while maintaining an aesthetic integrity. Hahn usually begins with thin layers of acrylic paint, laying darker pigment over lighter pigment. He then begins his process of manipulating and often removing paint to expose the light hidden within. To do this, Hahn uses his own hands, rags, or non-traditional materials.
So I should probably focus more on promoting myself, but sometimes great things come your way regardless. I’m a pretty humble person, but I am learning to celebrate me more and this is something I am extremely excited about and want to shout from the roof tops!
I was approached about a full spread featured artisan article, interview and photoshoot about me and my art for the upcoming March 2018 issue of St. Louis Homes + Lifestyles magazine. They interviewed me and came to my studio for a photoshoot late in 2017. The magazine will be published near the end of February. I am so excited to see how it all comes together!
Here is a sneak peak, I was able to capture a photo of the photoshoot, so you get a little behind the scenes preview of what the article will be about.
With photographer Colin Miller
I was approached about a full spread featured artisan article, interview and photoshoot about me and my art in the March 2018 issue of St. Louis Homes + Lifestyles magazine. They did the interview and photoshoot late in 2017, the magazine will be published near the end of February 2018. I am so excited to see how it all comes together!
I met an interior designer when I was exhibiting at the Webster Arts Fair this summer. She loved one of my large red paintings for a contemporary hotel project she was working on in Davenport, Iowa. The hotel loved it too, and now my modern abstract painting is part of a beautiful art-themed hotel experience.
This fall, another one of my large red paintings was purchased for the Dierbergs corporate offices in Chesterfield Missouri.
It isn’t as common to sell multiple pieces to the same collector at the same time, especially large paintings. But a couple in Seattle found my art and fell in love with several paintings for their home. I crated them up and sent them on their long journey to the northwest.
I love doing commissioned art! It is really gratifying to work with people who want my art in their homes or businesses to enjoy. It is a great opportunity to get to know them and it makes the situation a lot more personal and gratifying. A couple in Philadelphia commissioned me to do a large painting in their dining room. They had just gotten married and moved into a new house that they are making into their joint home. Was a great experience to be a part of their new life together.
Here’s to an amazing 2018 for all of us!
Hahn used strong vertical and horizontal lines in this piece. It suggests an architectural subject. He combine that with some distinct texture that gave it some additional industrial cues. The dark burgundy color palette is bold and attention getting, which was intentional, as he wanted a strong visually impactful piece.
We all experience corruption in different facets of life. It is often portrayed on the evening news and in social media. You can’t miss hearing about it or at least the speculation of it. In this painting, Hahn is showing the destructive remnants of a corrupt society. The architectural elements seem to have decayed in this abstract painting.
Purchase this painting and browse others on his Etsy store.
Located on the tree-lined parkway of beautiful Flora Place at Tower Grove Avenue, the Historic Shaw Art Fair is one of the premier fine art and fine craft fairs in the St. Louis area. It is highly rated by art fair magazines and participating artists. Roughly 135 top caliber artists and craftspeople from around the country are selected each year to participate in the professionally juried event.
This year it was juried by Brian David Smith, a renowned painter and art faculty member at St. Charles Community College – St. Charles, MO, Melissa Whitwam, fiber artist and Executive Director of the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, MO, and Michael Parrett a metal and glass artist and Director of Community Programs and Director of Operations over the Grand Center location of Craft Alliance Center of Art+Design.
October 7 & 8, 2017
4100 & 4200 blocks of Flora Place
St. Louis, Missouri
Here is a sneak peak into some of the art I will be displaying:
Visitors and artists will enjoy the festive atmosphere that includes live music, a food court featuring food from many local restaurants, and a children’s art area.
This event is held concurrently with the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Best of Missouri Market, which is located directly across Tower Grove Avenue from the Shaw Art Fair.
Dates and Times:
Saturday, October 7th from 9am to 5pm
Sunday, October 8th from 10am to 5pm
I am really looking forward to the show!
Come by and say hello, this is a great opportunity for me to see my collectors in person!
Webster Arts Fair is one of the best art fairs in the Midwest, attracting artists from over 23 states. This year it was juried by: Amanda Verbeck, owner of Pele Prints, painter and publisher, Randi Chervitz, owner of Uncommon Threads, professional metal smith and jeweler, and Garry McMichael, an accomplished St. Louis are painter and photographer, who has been published in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, TIME, NEWSWEEK, FORBES, BICYCLING and dozens of other national publications.
This year’s Webster Arts Fair, June 2-4, 2017, is set on the oak-shaded grounds of Webster University/Eden Theological Seminary in the heart of historic Webster Groves, Missouri (63119), just 10 minutes west of downtown St. Louis.
Here is a sneak peak into some of the art I will be displaying:
Webster Arts Fair, is a one-of-a-kind fine arts fair, set in the beautiful park setting of Eden Theological Seminary, in the heart of historic Webster Groves, Missouri. It is conveniently located near Downtown St.Louis and Clayton. Webster Arts Fair is continually noted as a favorite fair among artists, because of unmatched hospitality and amenities, showcases many varieties of art, while offering delectable food, top-notch musical performances, and unique creative activities for the whole family.
Each year, over 105 juried artists participate at Webster Arts Fair, which is often noted as one of the best art fairs in the Midwest. The artists come from across the U.S. and Canada, with a third of them coming from outside the St. Louis metropolitan area.
I am really looking forward to the show, and exhibiting new art never before seen by the public!
Come by and say hello, this is a great opportunity for me to see my collectors in person!
But did you know that dear Mona had a twin? Covered with multiple layers of dark and cracked varnish she hung abandoned in cavernous museum basements for ages – exactly from 1819 when Prado Museum in Madrid was founded on the base of Spanish royalty’s art collection. You can read more about this on the DailyArtDaily, but here are the highlights.
The Museum assumed it was a bad 16th- or 17th-century copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s original, which dates back to the early 1500s. Everything changed when Prado’s curators decided the painting needed a face lift because it was going on loan to the Louvre. Some X-ray and infrared studies has been executed, and everyone were shocked to find a beautiful landscape hidden beneath the dark paint behind the subject.
What they uncovered was Mona Lisa’s twin. As you can see, after restoring the dark background back to it’s original state, it is almost identical to the famous Mona Lisa.
Even more shocking is that according to the curators the painting was actually executed by an artist in Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop at the same time as the original. Probably it was created by Francesco Melzi, one of Leonardo’s favorite pupils.
People should really find better things to do with their time. 
… like browsing my beautiful art for sale.
I recently made a trip to the big apple…speaking of Apple, I couldn’t miss their advertisement when capturing the Empire State Building from my hotel room. Good ad placement!
I got a chance to see a few sites including Times Square and Central Park. It was cold and some snow left from a prior storm, but the city truly is amazing.
One of my favorite parts of New York are all the great galleries and museums. I spent some time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw some amazing art. Here are a few that I photographed.
Barnett Newman’s oil painting “Concord”
In 1948, Barnett Newman began painting in a new and unique format. Abandoning the use of various other abstract elements on the canvas, Newman instead laid down one or more vertical bands usually with the help of masking tape. As you can see here, the tape was never removed. Makes you wonder, was it intentional or just because it wouldn’t remove cleanly like the newer blue painters tape that is loved by present day artists and home owners alike. Anyway, these “zips,” as he came to call them, became the organizing principle behind the work, the decisive elements that structure the entire picture.
Concord was painted during Newman’s most prolific year. It was shown at the artist’s first solo exhibition, at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950, which was installed with the help of his friend, you may know of him… Mark Rothko (one of my personal favorites). The picture’s green layer of paint is uncharacteristically brushy, and it was perhaps with its atmospheric wash in mind that Newman titled the painting after the town famous for Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, where he and his wife, Annalee, had honeymooned fourteen years earlier.
Willem de Kooning’s painting “Easter Monday”
Named for the day on which it was completed in 1956, this is the largest of ten grandly scaled paintings de Kooning exhibited at Sidney Janis Gallery that spring. In his review of the exhibition in Artnews, the critic Thomas Hess likened the works to “abstract urban landscapes”; indeed, in its highly textured surface, swooping lines of paint, and glimpses of newspaper transfers, Easter Monday seems to reference the whirling pace and gritty detritus of the modern city. The transferred newsprint, particularly visible at the bottom and top right, remains aligned with the edges of the canvas, enforcing the tenuous grid structure of the painting. Shot through with Rubensian fleshlike pinks and vivid blues and yellow, Easter Monday is a tour de force of de Kooning’s 1950s style.
I am a contemporary abstract artist. My art is an expression of my experiences, emotions, inspirations and stories I choose to tell.
- Andy Hahn