Hannah Cole Dahar

Sleep and how it breaks through to the waking world mimics the flotsam that floats following the currant. The sleep cycle’s pattern follows a path, but what percolates to the conscious mind is happenstance. The quality of the sleep and the retention of the dream is often beyond control, but the memory from the sleep state has a profound effect on body and mind that carries into consciousness.

 

The dreamer is cocooned in fabrics and comforts in order to aid the deepness and the sweetness of sleep. The quality of sleep, the dream, and how it carries into the conscious present to become memory when transitioning from the sleep state is unpredictable.

 

Paralleling this is the landscape created by sleep patterns. Fabric holds memory of its disturbance whether the figure is present or whether it is the remnants of a careless shuffling and piling. The accidental folds and creases, overlapping of textures and the way in which light catches the scene is a fleeting moment that is common within the confines of an intimate setting, but rarely witnessed by outsiders. I revisit these moments and project my personal visual observation with my perception of what is/was taking place within the scape by layering paint that breaks through, merges or stays uncovered. Decisions are made with each recalling and retelling of the image. 

 

Transparency, opacity, layering and exaggeration all intermingle within the pieces, whether the figure is present or only caused by the figure. Color breaks through from one layer of painting to the next. It fragments to mirror how memory is recalled. Some areas reflect what a conscious observer would see and are rendered in that manner. Other areas reveal a hyper saturated “dream” layer, or all the way back to the base of complement tinted black and white. Each recollection of the composition acts in the way that the mind stores information. The top and most layer becomes dominant however areas of layering remain at the surface through intentional protection. Sometimes layers accidentally seep through. Sometimes they are intentionally recalled and overlaid. With each recollection and revisitation to each of the different color layers there are pieces that are lost or added, disjointed, fragmented or imagined. The dream moment changes as each painting evolves, and every action - whether accident or design - will determine its outcome.