I have an ultimate goal of what I want the painting to do, but it rarely turns out that way. The moment I give up an agenda, that’s when the paint takes over… - Heidi Hahn
The works on paper Untitled, (But Loved) 1 – 7, 2015 - 2019 are part of a body of work by the American painter Heidi Hahn, which was started on Fischers Island, off the coast of Connecticut at the residency Lighthouse Works in 2015, continued during the summer of 2019 at MacDowell, a residency in New Hampshire, USA and recently completed in her studio in Brooklyn, New York. The artist’s titles are usually an umbrella to a whole series of works, by giving them the same title and numbering the works, she is suggesting that the title is arbitrary to the experience of the work itself. The figures are set loosely against rendered backgrounds that hint at a site within what is largely an abstract surface. This ambiguity is intentional and evidences the artist’s refusal of specificity, confusion of temporalities, bodies and interior/exterior spaces. The women pictured suggest symbolic figures and seem to be in fleeting mental states. Awash with pattern and dynamic treatment of colour to reflect this, Hahn made subtle changes to the works over time, the story is embedded individually in each one, but they all come together as an animation of sorts. Like numerous people recounting a story and adding the details that make it unique to their version, each work captures the suggestion or residue of feeling preserved over time.