‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Chris Hagan
Open Daily | 10am-8pm
19th - 26th May 2021
Chris Hagan is a contemporary visual artist based in Brighton, UK. Having spent 2012 – 2017 as a freelance illustrator, Hagan has concentrated on contemporary fine art as his main art practice since 2017, during this time producing figurative and landscape-based works on paper and works on canvas.
‘In Search of Lost Time’
Chris Hagan’s first solo show with Blue Shop Cottage brings together a selection of works on paper and larger scale paintings created between 2017 and 2021. The selected works are aligned to a specific time and place, in particular if there has been an involvement through history and a way of life that was rural, humble and isolated from the urban expansions of the age. Piecing together a range of imagery from personal and found sources, subject matter is often created and reconstructed as a response to the original source material. Using the medium of painting, collage and drawing the work is inspired by a perceived romanticism for the countryside: a safe haven, seen as a place of rejuvenation, hope and enlightenment, juxtaposed against the brutality of poverty, isolation and the violent histories that still linger, spirit like in the landscape.
An interest in imagery of rural people working the land, regional folk traditions, of stories and beliefs that were rooted in superstition and the supernatural guide certain subconscious emotional responses towards the subject matter; and within these parameters Hagan strives to create ambiguity, layering artifice alongside disparate references to folk art and 20th century art through drawing, re-occurring motifs and the creation of abstracted effigies to the physical through a subtle distortion of the figurative form, inviting the viewer to form their own narrative.
Although some imagery is created purely through drawing and the use of motifs and the imagination, much of the source material dates back to early photography, with some from more recent times. Geographically this relates to people from the north of England, Ireland and Scotland, echoing the history and memory of both the artist, his extended family and the collective distant relations of many people within the country.