In Hertha Hanson’s fourth solo exhibition at Anna Bohman Gallery, Hanson has formed a personal and very distinct visual language. As the Trojan Horse, the paintings contain more than one can see at first sight. Hanson’s paintings include both intuition and thoughtfulness beacause embedded in the oil paintings are fluctuations of time. The paintings consist of memories and tracks; like the registration of experiences in a human’s memory bank. The tracks are not always explicitly visible; rather they shape and affect what comes after.

Hanson’s way of working is completely unconstrained. Through wide strokes with the scraper and seemingly instinctive applications the paintings are built up layer by layer, color by color. Hanson’s numbered paintings present a narrative of change each one leading to the next.

The paintings of Hertha Hanson elaborate with perspectives from behind and in front, before and after, present and past. As a viewer you are drawn in by the irregular patterns of color and your eye searches for a fixed point to hold on to. Her paintings do not conform to the desire for consistency; rather the color seems to move continuously within the frame as a guided structure in the space of your imagination. Hertha Hanson´s paintings are fluid and in constant motion.

Hertha Hanson (1980) lives and works in Karlstad, Sweden. In 2009, she received an MFA from Malmö Art Academy. Her work has previously been shown at Moderna Museet Malmö, Luleå Konsthall, Malmö konstmuseum, Lund Konsthall, Rackstadmuseet, Kristinehamns konstmuseum, Vargåkra Gård, Galleri Arnstedt etc. Hanson has received numerous awards such as Edstrandska Foundation Scholarship, Ellen Trotzig, Fredrik Roos, Bror Hjorth.

Photos: Courtesy of Anna Bohman Gallery