Using stills from early propaganda films or frontier paintings as a basis, the layered paintings of Joshua Hagler deconstruct our history. Each work goes through several iterations, distorting and removing previous layers to arrive at something new entirely. The explorations become both visceral and introspective in this process.
“This current body of work draws inspiration from Lethe, the Greek mythological river of forgetting,” a recent statement says. “It was said that one drinks from Lethe before being reborn, losing most or all memory of the past. German philosopher, Heidegger interpreted Lethe not as a simple accident of forgetting, but as a ‘concealment of being.’ The task for Heidegger was ‘unconcealment,’ in turn Hagler sets to uncover personal truths by examining America’s cultural amnesia and psychological repression.”
See more of the artist’s recent work below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh9Wf3SBfsd/?taken-by=haglerjosh
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