Janna van Hasselt: Chromaflage, Installation View. Supplied by The Dowse.
Photo Credit
Step into this all-encompassing optical experience! In Chromaflage, Janna van Hasselt occupies the wallspace of an entire gallery with a rainbow of painted marks and glossy porcelain forms that coalesce against a fluorescent orange backdrop.
Contrasting vivid and gentle colours to create a chromatic buzz, van Hasselt also challenges our perception with thick, textured smears of paint and fired ceramic strokes that look like they’ve been squeezed out of a tube. Together, her shades and shapes hum to explore the unexpected similarities between prominence and disguise. In a time when wellbeing is at the forefront of many of our minds, van Hasselt offers a joyful, visual release that she says also reflects on how “safety is both associated with being highly visible and by blending into the background through camouflage”.
Janna van Hasselt has a BFA from the Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch (2004), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2014) as the recipient of a Fulbright Award. She has also undertaken residencies in London, The Netherlands, Belgium and Pennsylvania and exhibited throughout New Zealand, most notably in the SCAPE Biennale (Christchurch, 2016), The Portage Ceramic Awards (Auckland, 2012-2021) and her major solo exhibition at Ashburton Art Gallery “Chromasill” (2021), which was the result of her winning the 2020 Zonta Ashburton Female Art Award.
Step into this all-encompassing optical experience! In Chromaflage, Janna van Hasselt occupies the wallspace of an entire gallery with a rainbow of painted marks and glossy porcelain forms that coalesce against a fluorescent orange backdrop.
Contrasting vivid and gentle colours to create a chromatic buzz, van Hasselt also challenges our perception with thick, textured smears of paint and fired ceramic strokes that look like they’ve been squeezed out of a tube. Together, her shades and shapes hum to explore the unexpected similarities between prominence and disguise. In a time when wellbeing is at the forefront of many of our minds, van Hasselt offers a joyful, visual release that she says also reflects on how “safety is both associated with being highly visible and by blending into the background through camouflage”.
Janna van Hasselt has a BFA from the Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch (2004), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2014) as the recipient of a Fulbright Award. She has also undertaken residencies in London, The Netherlands, Belgium and Pennsylvania and exhibited throughout New Zealand, most notably in the SCAPE Biennale (Christchurch, 2016), The Portage Ceramic Awards (Auckland, 2012-2021) and her major solo exhibition at Ashburton Art Gallery “Chromasill” (2021), which was the result of her winning the 2020 Zonta Ashburton Female Art Award.
