Hanae Moreno
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Painting allows Hanae Moreno to explore the physical and collective nature of the human form. She seeks to understand what it means to occupy a body in space. Her work is also an autobiographical journey. Although she paints people, her work is not only of individuals. She looks at the weight of a sitter’s presence in intimate discourse with herself, and seeks to capture the experience of the self as viewed and interpreted, and the self as viewer and observer.
Praxis statement:
I am currently working on self portraits, using myself as subject to probe the act of seeing. I am curious about what is revealed by the persona, the masks that we wear, and tantalized by what it keeps hidden. How can I understand others when I have enough difficulty to come to grips with my reflection, my own psyche? Does what I see exist or do I see only surface images that hide what lies behind? Do we see what we each project, deluding ourselves into thinking that the constellation of light and shadow before our eyes truly exists? Through portraiture I work to tease out and convey what I see momentarily, capturing a fleeting glimpse of what appears before it is lost. Through examining myself in a mirror day after day, I understand that nothing lasts. I end up depicting archetypes rather than the essence of who I am, who we are, as finite, immutable individuals.