Limbus 2017

Eckart Hahn's, Limbus is a painting with a luminous palette, realized with meticulous precision. Imagine the hours, days, weeks even, spent layering thin glazes, coaxing that lioness into existence. She’s caught mid-leap, suspended by crimson ropes, a yellow sun or moon hovers beneath her, a silent witness to her strange predicament. I wonder what Hahn was thinking when he made this. Perhaps he felt like that lioness, trapped in the amber of his own making, yearning for release? The ropes are painted with such care, each strand rendered with almost obsessive detail. Look how they seem to both bind and support her. It reminds me of Gerhard Richter's photorealist paintings, only with a surreal twist. Both artists share an interest in the surface, that smooth, almost glassy finish. But where Richter seeks to capture the fleeting nature of images, Hahn seems to be conjuring a world of dreams, a space between worlds where anything is possible. I feel the dialogue, the ongoing call and response between painters across time, each riffing on the themes and ideas of those who came before.