*Images courtesy of the artist and Birch Contemporary*

Minimal, thought-provoking, sensitive and often more than meets the eye, visual artist and curator David Hanes’ works enter the viewer into a world whereby lived experience and art are intertwined.

Whilst Hanes works across a large span of art mediums including sculpture, performance, installation and video, his focus seems to lie primarily within photography and digital printing– presenting and experimenting with both through online and physical exhibition spaces. To add to this impressive repertoire of ability, Hanes also works as a curator having curated a large number of exhibitions and projects, now managing his own space, Later Gallery, in his native city of Toronto.

“Curating has always been a way of contextualising my own work and has been a place of research. So both my art and my curating inform one another,” Hanes explains.

Through his images and digital printing works, Hanes is able to experiment with the various ways of presenting images. Interested in the combination of digital images and physical objects, his works often present a recognisable space or setting that becomes somewhat warped and transformed through his treatment of the image itself. He reshapes the original function of representing art in a physical space, finding meaning in that which transmutes between the physical and digital world.

“There has been an inclination towards a more subtle aesthetic these past few years but I am always looking to progress and grow. My aesthetic may change as I experiment but it will also come full circle... it’s all process.”

As we live within a world of media hybridity, Hanes explores his relationship to visual culture throughout his artwork. Whilst Hanes finds at times “it is challenging to find a succinct connection between all the ideas one can generate”, he demonstrates an insight like no other into the ever presence of the “illuminated screen” within the dissemination of our everyday life.

Currently in Berlin preparing for an exhibition entitled 'Are We Friends Yet? 'alongside other upcoming shows and curatorial projects, Hanes is unwaveringly proving himself to be one to keep a keen eye on.

http://davidhanes.info/index.html
http://latergallery.tumblr.com/

Words / Sarina Meuleman