Soaps 2015

Eckart Hahn’s painting ‘Soaps’ presents us with ordinary objects and geometric forms in oil paint. The still life genre has a long history, particularly in the Netherlands where it became increasingly popular in the 17th century with the rise of the merchant class. At that time, such art became accessible to a wider public and still life paintings often included symbolic objects designed to evoke ideas of luxury, wealth and mortality. But here Hahn seems to be playing on that history, abstracting the setting and re-imagining the items. The surfaces of the objects reflect light and color, yet the image is deliberately ambiguous, evoking an unsettling sense of artificiality. As art historians we often consider what an artwork represents, and it’s worth researching the cultural history of the still life as well as the work of other contemporary painters to help us explore how Hahn’s painting speaks to institutional conventions and artistic traditions.