Close to Home by W.A.S Hatch

The intimacy of domestic life mixed with elements of the natural world readily emerge in Wendy Hatch’s work. Imagined landscapes and spaces are inviting, yet magically foreign. Although the scenes are sometimes familiar, their distortion is revealed through impossible colors and bold brushstrokes.

The multifaceted nature of the work presents acrylic scenes using personal photographs of familiar places as the basis for final, painted compositions. These photographs are then cut up and pieced back together to frame the many elements that construct the final composition. This fragmented “sketch” is then used to direct Hatch’s resulting large-scale painted canvases. This technique is inspired by Hatch’s immediate surroundings, which can be seen throughout the body of work – how reflected light shines in Brandywine Blues, or the texture of snow on the trees in Yellow Topiary, a familiar setting from Longwood Gardens.

This practice allows Hatch the ability to construct her favored assemblage into a newly imagined landscape; one that suggests reality, but actualizes a manufactured scene brimming with expressive brushstroke and a lush color palette. Each painted scene encapsulates a multitude of moments, inspired by the aesthetic quality of our natural world. Hatch craftily collects these snapshots as a means throughout her process to ultimately capture the essence of the space, the time, the sensation.

In doing so, this current body of work presents Hatch as not only a contemporary master of her unique style, but showcases her success as an explorer of materials and processes. This is not a retrospective of Hatch’s work, but rather a presentation of another chapter of Hatch’s accomplishments in examination, expression, and tactful process.

Beckler Family Gallery

OPENING EVENT: Friday, February 4, 2022 | 5 – 9 PM during ART LOOP