ARTIST STATEMENT
Linda Hahner lives and works in San Francisco and Mannheim Germany.
Hahner began oil painting when she received a scholarship to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Here, she discovered birch trees and began using them as metaphors for human relationships.
After graduating from Washington University with an M.F.A, in painting and printmaking, Hahner received a scholarship and travel grant to study the birch trees of northern Finland. She was the first American painter to receive a Fulbright to study in the beautiful Scandinavian country; where trees are revered and nature venerated. It was a perfect fit and it changed her life.
Hahner began oil painting when she received a scholarship to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Here, she discovered birch trees and began using them as metaphors for human relationships.
After graduating from Washington University with an M.F.A, in painting and printmaking, Hahner received a scholarship and travel grant to study the birch trees of northern Finland. She was the first American painter to receive a Fulbright to study in the beautiful Scandinavian country; where trees are revered and nature venerated. It was a perfect fit and it changed her life.
Hahner spent the next eight years working and exhibiting as a professional artist in England, Finland, and Germany. Her Chaos Paintings emerged as a way to articulate and understand the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. She began to see color and abstraction as the spiritual connection between all things big and small.
Hahner took a hiatus during which time she became a digital pioneer: designing the first real-time 3D virtual reality applications for the Internet.
Today, Linda Hahner's fascination with birch trees and forests continues even as she explores DNA as destiny. Her paintings visualize the struggle between healthy organisms and the foreign bodies that attack them.
THE VISION
"Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork... we all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly." Agnes Martin
Birch Study
SELECT EXHIBITS
Chaos In Vitro
Zimmermann Gallery
Breisach, Germany
Zimmermann Gallery
Breisach, Germany
We Too are Two
Hagelstam Gallery
Helsinki, Finland
Hagelstam Gallery
Helsinki, Finland
Riding Wild Horses
Kunsthalle Museum
Helsinki, Finland
Kunsthalle Museum
Helsinki, Finland
The Landscape
B Z Wagman Gallery
St Louis, Missouri
B Z Wagman Gallery
St Louis, Missouri
Nous
Steinberg Gallery
St Louis, Missouri
Steinberg Gallery
St Louis, Missouri
EDUCATION
Master of Fine Art
Washington University
St Louis, Missouri
Washington University
St Louis, Missouri
Bachelor of Arts
Principia College
Elsah, Illinois
Principia College
Elsah, Illinois
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Skowhegan, Maine
Skowhegan, Maine
Kuvataideakatemia - Bildkonstakademin
Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki, Finland
Copyright 2020 Linda Hahner