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Hasani Sahlehe: Song Ideas
Canada
60 Lispenard Street, New York, NY
By EDWARD WAISNIS November 6, 2024
Visible, from the street, through the gallery window and installed in the street facing communal office area Stadium, 2024, read as a classic informal geometric purple/orange pairing. Once in the door, and on approach the three blue horizontal rectangles at center, in a tower of pisa lean array, elucidate the complex riff on Op Art. This sensitive balance of hue is captivating but is never leaned on, cookie-cutter style, in Sahlehe’s practice; a testament to his strong conceptualization.
Hasani Sahlehe, Stadium, 2024, acrylic gel on canvas, 96 x 78 inches
Previous work fell under the influence of early Pop–Warhol’s hand-painted and Lichtenstein’s early stuff–dosed with Alex Katz’s all prima stylist that continues to hold sway via his execution process. He explored themes and images, in these antecedents, namely the daily used commodities that occupied the landscape of his native St. Thomas.
Installation view Hasani Sahlehe Song Ideas Canada Gallery
Now, for this exhibition, leaving behind the exploration of societal shift caused by European colonization *, Sahlehe presents New York school scaled canvases that feature characteristics taken from color field; melding Jules Olitski and Kenneth Noland while retaining the laissez-faire of Katz. Clement Greenberg’s push-pull, the adage that summarized his stark focus on, and regard for, the veritable tooth of the canvas.
Speaking of the treatment of the support they are painted laying flat, horizontally, onto which a melange of acrylic gel and acrylic paint is spilled. Sahleje has abandoned the scrawl for the pour and luscious is the term that best encapsulates the fabrication. Furthermore, this method gives reason to the tilt in the finished compositions give the fact that a full frontal view only came for the painter once the canvas was re-orientated to read vertically. There is some manipulation of the substance during laid flat phase that I imagine to constitute light sweeping, to guide and aid end effect, with a tool (scraper) of some sort. Some are over-painted using, an automotive spray gun, otherwise the surfaces are largely uninflected while retaining imperfections, chief among these small bubbles that testify to the process while adding a quirky charm.
Through this melange of considerations and comparisons I am acknowledging the embrace of the arcade from video to architectural that comes is encapsulated buoyantly. Other precursors are found in Sean Scully, compositionally, and Gary Hume, for the finish forward fetish.
Hasani Sahlehe, My Secret, 2024, acrylic gel and airbrush on canvas, 108 x 784 inches
Once properly digested, and allowing the swell of the altered state deep consideration of painting can turn out, the works open up as fields of reasoned play. From the stimulating worlds of the digital–gaming platforms to anime–to the clunkiness of the foundational Lego-branded line, to the indulgence of sweets and high-end Naugahyde covered goods all ranges of commodification are embraced. With regards to confection, I couldn't get away from remembrance a of brand from my youth, Bonomo Turkish Taffy. While other confections enter the fray, Skittles, Jujubes and Chuckles, but none quite match taffy for the quality of dense chewiness Sahlehe achieves.
The largest work, My Secret, 2022, a tablet with the height of nine feet and an expanse of seven, and is one of two works coming from a couple years back that round out the eleven on display. In it’s modular color and intimations of vistas beyond due to the striation in the paint application in the three central rectangles over which the solid lintels are stacked like rudimentary minimalist benches, or very neatly arranged curtains framing those views out of the window(s). A couple of other stand-outs, bring attention through strident interlocking that either link passage, Bridges, or send one in a tailspin of circulation as in Sun, Moon and Stars (early gaming evocations once more), both 2024. Leanest of all is Uncle, 2024 locked in tasteful mid-rage palette touched-off with near-cancelling impediments of black and chocolate brown.
Hasani Sahlehe, Bridges, 2024, acrylic gel on canvas, 66 x 55 inches
The energy in the smaller of the two galleries, where are the walls were pulled in, so to speak, bringing both the paintings and the viewer into closer, more intimate proximity emanate the warmth found in those Upper East Side vestibule of the aforementioned pricey commodities.
Hasani Sahlehe, Sun, Moon and Stars, 2024, acrylic gel on canvas, 82 x 65 inches
Curiously, another painter represented by the gallery, Katherine Bernhardt, delves into the strain of now marginal, and somewhat disdained, Color Field school, using atmosphere wash and color to activate perception. In her case, Bernhardt wallows in imagery informed by memory of Saturday morning cartoons, daytime TV and the dollar store, with a sense of possibilities to elaborate, and expand, her oeuvre in multiple directions, that goes counter to the mandates of Greenbergian purity. While Sahlehe has willfully painted himself into the proverbial corner, by prescribing to the programatic closing off possibilities to exit ramps. It will be interesting to see where he goes.
Hasani Sahlehe, Uncle, 2024, acrylic gel on canvas, 82 x 65 inches
* Quoted from video made to accompany his exhibition, Banana Republic, at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia.
Exhibition was on September 4 – October 5, 2024
Edward Waisnis is an artist and filmmaker. Additionally, he is the Producer of two Quay Brothers films, Through the Weeping Glass and Unmistaken Hands, as well as having overseen the facilitation of their 2012 MoMA retrospective. His writing has appeared in Art New England, COVER, ARTextreme and STROLL.
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