EMERGENCE

The Cornerstone Center presents “Emergence” by Harry Hancock. The exhibition will feature six life-size portraits depicting in Old Master detail the isolated faces of the artist’s friends, family and students, emerging from a web of dark, inked-out abstract patterns. Realistic images materialize out of an abstract ‘primordial soup’, evoking the emergence of conscious thought from the depths of the subconscious.

Trained in the techniques of the Old Masters, Hancock grinds his own paint and stretches his own canvases, and is committed to realism in art. The bridging of eras and styles is central to his art, which presents an intriguing lens through which to view history and the present. There is a dream-like quality to his work that arises from his unconventional composition and the relationship this creates between the abstract and the figurative. The logic of the non-conscious permeates his work, which therefore reflects the processes that create chaotic nature, as well as the preoccupations and fantasies of the Realist artist in 21st century New York.