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Hilary Hanlen Irons
Hilary
Hanlen Iron's paintings are pictures of concrete things:
animals, people, and landscapes working together to
create a narrative. Each of these elements is endowed
with the power of personality and symbol - the animals,
plants and other objects are humanized into beings
that are more outspoken than in our world, while the
people are in turn reduced from all-consuming worldly
humans to symbolic beings who work on the same level
as the plants and animals, as in myth.The narratives
that exist in the work force no absolute meaning on
the viewer; they are either too specific to my own
experience or too disjunctive to fit together without
extrapolation on the part of the viewer, letting him
or her find a personal meaning (possibly unintended
by Irons) in the image. Iron's is strongly influenced
by Medieval Art, with its conscious jumbling of perspective
and story line, and its emphasis on a personal response
to imagery. Daily goings - on and heroic myths are
presented in the same unlofty way by Medieval artists,
allowing us to see ourselves in their world. this
kind of viewing opens us up to understanding what
is common to all experience, what can be found behind
the everyday, and where we fit into another world.
In Iron's work, she is opening up the meaning in stories
to allow a route into a world that is hidden behind
her won experience of the image. The worlds found
within and beyond the world of daily life, within
an anonymous picture or photograph, miniature and
elusive and constantly transmuting, are the world
her paintings offer.
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