Halsey Hathaway | Night Visit

23rd August - 21st September 2024

In ‘Night Visit’ Hathaway’s work invites us into a world where the act of looking becomes an exercise in contemplation, where moments of stillness are charged with texture, colour, and meaning. His exploration of negative space reveals a transformation; empty voids become vibrant, occupied realms, rich with visual and emotional depth.

One night, Hathaway's studio was momentarily invaded by the flashing lights of an ambulance, casting a rhythmic dance of colours and shadows across his clean walls and painted canvases. This interposition is both an additive filter of light on the existing forms in the room, as well as being subtractive; forming entirely new palettes and ways of seeing Hathaway’s environment. This Night Visit imprinted itself on his mind, a haunting yet intriguing memory that lingered for two years before emerging in the paintings displayed in this exhibition. The symbolism of the ambulance lights, with their ominous connotations, infuses Hathaway’s work with a sense of curiosity, agitation and trepidation.

Here, the artistic journey is one of vulnerability and responsiveness, attuned to the shifting dynamics of light, space, and the viewer’s perception. His work engages in a dialogue with changing environments, where each fluctuation in light or space reshapes the experience and meaning of the artwork. The meticulously painted surfaces in Hathaway’s work serve as structures that capture and hold colour within the space of the canvas. Thickly applied acrylics interact with swathes of richly stained canvas, creating a harmonious interplay of reactive forms. Just as the rotating lights dictated the movement of shadows in his studio, the fields of colour in these paintings shape the form and emotional resonance of the work.

In this new body of work, Hathaway embraces fluid and spontaneous response in the process of painting. The initial mapping may be predetermined, but the resulting interstitial forms of the interacting forms are surprising and often are coloured or manipulated to bring the painting into a new and different space. They are dynamic, carving out the picture plane in a spirited relationship of colour and shape. These paintings resist static interpretation, offering instead a constantly evolving experience, where forms transform and react in a continuous, vibrant dialogue with the viewer.