Elizabeth Hazan

BIO

Elizabeth Hazan is a New York based artist and the director of Platform Project Space. She was born and raised in New York City and attended Bryn Mawr College and the New York Studio School. She was awarded a fellowship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has twice been a resident of Yaddo. Recent shows include High Noon at the Duck Creek Art Center in Springs, NY, Heat Wave at Johannes Vogt Gallery, NY, and the two-person show Body to Land at Turn Gallery, NY. Her work was included in Psychedelic Landscape at Eric Firestone Gallery, NY this past summer. Upcoming shows include Sundown at the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, NY and a three-person show at 1GAP, Brooklyn, NY opening in May, 2023.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The imagery in my work is a mixture of invention and something that I recall. They are imaginary landscapes that suggest nature off kilter. I start from ink and watercolor drawings that I approach like a stream of consciousness writing exercise. I work from a hovering, aerial vantage point over an empty field and play between looping lines and floods of color. I am thinking as much about how the lines take the viewer around the picture, as I am about evoking the light and air of a specific landscape, mining the fertile border between landscape and abstraction.

I draw from memory of open farmland and explore imaginative possibilities that spring from that land. The term dream logic feels apt, where there are elements, forms, light, a charged atmosphere that feel familiar to the viewer, but things verge on the surreal. I want a degree of ambiguity that resists easy naming. The pictures I create depict a heightened version of nature that feels true to experience, especially with all the images we now see of the climate pushed to extremes.

Interview with Elizabeth Hazan

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist?

I recently gave a talk about my work at the New York Studio School where I spoke about being the child of two painters and that none of us thought I’d be an artist myself. It didn’t really occur to me. It was after working in film for a while that I figured out that I wanted to wake up and make something directly instead of working in such a collaborative industry with so much waiting around time. I grew up in downtown New York City and spent a lot of time on the East End of Long Island.

Can you tell us about some of your most memorable early influences?

Because my mother’s studio was at home, I got a close up understanding of how artists spent their time. I watched her mix paint intuitively and observe the rhythms of the day and I was lucky to visit a range of studios of my mother’s artist friends and see what those practices were like. I spent a lot of time with my friends wandering outdoors in the farmland around our house in the country, kind of a free range childhood. That time in flat open spaces would prove influential to the paintings I make now.

Where are you currently based and what brought you there? Are there any aspects of this specific location or community that have inspired your work?

I live in the Village, a block from where I grew up, so not very adventurous. My studio is in Dumbo, just over the Brooklyn Bridge. When I do walk to the studio, as I did often during the pandemic, it’s very uplifting. New York on a foggy evening is magical.

What is your studio space like? What makes your space unique to you?

I currently have a fantastic studio though the Two Trees Cultural Subsidy program in Brooklyn. It’s large enough that I can have a contained mess on tables, books and catalogues of artists like Darger, Gorky, Joan Mitchell, Burchfield, Bonnard, lots of pie tins for mixing paint, various inks, watercolor pans and paper, and then keep parts of the studio clean and spare to look at the paintings I’m making.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?

I like to spend a lot of time in the studio. I’m not one of those artists who works in a four hour frenzy and then leaves for the day. I work best when I have one painting that I’m focused on and then go over to others that are simmering along. Ideally, I work on both drawings and paintings in a day but sometimes a painting will be in a challenging place and it’s hard to leave it. Ideally working all day into evening. Things flow better when there’s continuity.

How do you maintain momentum in your practice?

Dark chocolate.

Can you walk us through your overall process in making your current work? Does drawing play a role in your process?

About five years ago, I started making ink and watercolor drawings that are almost like stream of consciousness writing exercises. I approach them in an exploratory way to find subject matter that is more surprising and inventive than I would come up with if I were trying to make a finished product. I take these drawings and make oil paintings from them, aiming to retain the freshness of the watercolor. The weird, unnamable colors you can get in watercolor have influenced how I paint in oil. I want both meandering lines to take you around the picture and floods of color. When I translate the drawings into oil paint, I embrace how oil is different and use that. I paint with the canvases flat on the floor. This allows me to make sweeping lines using my whole arm.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

The imagery in my current work is a based on forms found in nature but in an off kilter way that feels true to our current experience. The term dream logic feels apt to describe how things verge on the surreal but make sense. Often, I’ll see photos of wildfires and other phenomena and find it stranger than what we can invent, with the climate pushed to extremes. My work sits somewhere in the realm between landscape and abstraction. It’s best when there’s some degree of ambiguity, which is important in painting. I want the paintings to have the flow of allover lyrical abstraction, but I also want to create a more specific sense of a place in each work, so that the paintings have a real distinction from one another.  One consistent interest in my work over the years is conveying a sense of atmosphere. I guess you call it atmospheric perspective but it’s always been very palpable to me.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?

I run a project space alongside my studio practice called Platform. I curate shows and invite guest curators to mount shows here. I consider it a collaboration between artists. It’s satisfying to come up with an idea and make it happen. I get to live with the artwork here for a month. It’s a pleasure.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

I read a lot, mostly fiction. Lots of influences seep into my brain and marinate there that come out later in my work. I also like to read interviews with writers because there are so many parallels between writing and art making and writers can put into words so succinctly all the thrilling feelings and frustrations that confront us making art. The Paris Review has long had a terrific series of interviews with writers and I also recommend following their Instagram account because they often highlight a fabulously incisive quote that gets right at the heart of things. When I think of paintings that have recently stuck in my head, I’d say Charles Burchfield’s Misty Phantoms at Dawn comes to mind.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?

Whenever I see a painting by Lisa Sanditz, I’m always struck by how irreverent, fresh and surprising they are. She does whatever she wants and pulls it off. Lumin Wakoa had a really strong show at Harper’s this winter. I saw the Munch show in Paris, and I know he’s kind of an it boy for painters right now, with good reason. Katherine Bradford’s work hits on so many levels. She really draws you into the worlds she creates. Her paintings have a big immediate impact and yet you want to linger in them. There’s both empathy and humor in her painting, and I can’t think of anyone who uses color with such wit.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?

Tom Nozkowski said that he often kept paintings around his studio for ten years before he would go back in and resolve them. It was helpful to hear that some paintings are going to take time and not to force them.

I get lots of advice and counsel from a circle of artist friends including my husband, Steve Hicks and Kathryn Lynch who has been my close friend since we met at Skowhegan.

What are you working on in the studio right now? What’s coming up next for you?

I’m working on several large paintings for an upcoming three person show at 1GAP, in Brooklyn that opens mid-May, curated by Heskin Projects. I’m making a red one that at 76” is the largest I’ve done. I like how the bigger size engulfs you with color.

To find out more about Elizabeth Hazan check out her Instagram and website.