January 2004 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Moira Hahn “Twilight Chorus” Recent Paintings
January 8, 2004- February 19, 2005
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 8, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Koplin Del Rio Gallery is pleased to announce it’s first solo exhibition with Los Angeles based painter Moira Hahn.
Hahn’s watercolor paintings in “Twilight Chorus” transport the viewer to scenes from heaven and hell, populated by Japanese deities, demons and anime characters. During a recent trip to Kyoto, Hahn, who has studied Japanese art and traveled extensively in Japan over the past twenty five years, noticed striking similarities between the iconography of Catholicism she grew up with and ancient Buddhist art describing hell. Her paintings reflect similarities between hells, updating the concept with themes including mass marketing and the ubiquity of anime in both cultures.
A related body of work emerged from Hahn’s observation of the natural world, particularly the behavior of birds in her backyard and a host of feral cats that lurk nearby. Hahn’s study of nineteenth century Japanese ukiyo-e masters Kunisada (Toyokuni), Kuniyoshi, and Zeshin inspired her to create scenes in which the birds attempt to level the playing field. In “Revenge of the Tori”, for example, an atelier of vigilant birds print “Wanted” posters of neighborhood cats.
Currently, Hahn is a Full Time Assistant Professor of Art at Santiago Canyon College, in Orange, California. She received an Art Matters Fellowship for visual art in 1992. She has also been awarded an artist grant (Art Alliance/Tribute Fund, 1997) and full tuition scholarship in 1998 from California State University, Fullerton, where she completed her Master of Fine Arts Degree in 2000. Hahn has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and has had two solo exhibitions in Japan. Her work can be seen in collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, in San Francisco; the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC; the Oakland Museum; the Smithsonian Institution; and UCLA Medical Center.