Tanya Leighton is pleased to announce ‘Not The Way’, a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York based artist Van Hanos. This is his first exhibition at the gallery.

Hanos’ approach to painting is valued on difference; one work may be hyperreal - a historical rendition of painting tradition - while another may be an amalgamation of styles stretching from pre-Raphaelite to the editing techniques of Photoshop. Placed in direct dialogue with each other, neither is privileged and neither is employed ironically or in parody. Hanos’ range of approaches is held to the same principles that Hanos values not only in painting, but also in his view of life and the images that fill it.

In ‘Not The Way’, Hanos portrays the entities of each subject as solitary and alienated. A one-time sculpture is now a broken relic of a man who is unable to move, to procreate, to speak. A scarecrow takes on the role of Sisyphus, eternally carving and discarding his own head. Utilizing painting’s seeming immunity to critical detraction - the medium having already weathered countless proclamations of its death - Hanos engages the sparseness of the white, primed canvas, isolating his imagery from its context. This gesture creates space for seemingly disparate narratives and personal reflection to materialize, fade and return again like the ensemble cast of an Altman film. ‘Not The Way’ reveals Hanos’ rubric as broad and inclusive, constantly expanding alongside his lived experience and amounting to a poignant exploration of painting’s capacity to construct images as totemic, mysterious and representative of singular experience.

Van Hanos (b. 1979) lives and works in New York City. His work has been exhibited widely in New York, including Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, PPOW Gallery, Harris Lieberman and Mitchell Innes & Nash, as well as internationally at Galleria Pianissimo, Milan and Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen. Hanos has had solo exhibitions at West Street Gallery, New York and Retrospective, Hudson. His work has been written about in The New York Times, Flash Art and Artforum, among other publications. He teaches painting at Columbia University. This is the artist's first exhibition in Germany.