Contributed by Jason Andrew / In her solo show “The Scenic Route” at High Noon, Theresa Hackett remains committed to a process of reimagining nature through abstraction, texture, and bold compositions. Inspired by the dynamic interplay of form and environment, the show echoes the pastoral and sublime themes of classical landscape art – where balance and harmony were paramount – while pushing boundaries with modern kick. Like the early modernist Oscar Bluemner, Hackett’s paintings are – and long have been – architectural distillations of landscapes, structured yet only symbolically realistic.
One eleven-foot painting stands in harmony with a serial installation of nine paintings on panels that hang in walking rhythm around the gallery. The general temperature of the exhibition is one of winter-cool with soft hues, as if lit from the sinking edges of the sun on the horizon. Overall, Hackett’s compositions are compressed – fractured, folded, and pressed together. She’s discovered that the tension in her paintings comes from the space she allows between, where her tectonic shapes meet. Dense visual configurations create a compact alphabet of forms that she intensifies with concrete juxtapositions and color moods. It’s a self-proclaimed “artifice” that simultaneously flattens the painted space while offering a layered perspective.
The nine paintings on panels are each framed with a canary-yellow border that brings the eye to heel as it crosses the framing into the works. As a group, the paintings present a tactile interplay of surfaces, incorporating mixed-media elements like diatomaceous earth, gesso, paint, and marker. They also share a simple triad of color, which Hackett tones down to elicit a soft emotive response.
Several of the nine introduce schematically sketched sinuous trees that intensify the visual impact of the forms around them. Hackett’s titles tie her work to landscape. Outside Looking In is the most direct, with three trees clearly planted mid-height in the painting with their thin trunks stretching through a high horizon hosting a huge cool moon. In Time Travel Detour, the lean branches of two trees reach towards each other across a barren field of snow. Folding Fields with a Diamond features a white glacial form at the bottom, a blue pool shape in the middle, and orange canyons funneling upward.
Having hiked our way through the exhibition, we arrive at the giant painting Wandering, the summit of the show. Hackett is not one to shy away from scale — in her DUMBO studio years ago, I encountered several unstretched paintings that lay a few feet on the ground before sweeping clear to the ceiling – and ample size best embodies her work’s true force.
Wandering is a colossus of color at once distinct from and suggestive of Georgia O’Keeffe’s series Sky Above Clouds (1963–65). Prompted by views from an airplane, O’Keeffe’s series emerged from a need to capture “changing patterns” and “breathtaking” colors. Similarly, Hackett harnesses a brooding force of nature. O’Keeffe presents sky, Hackett brings mountains. While O’Keeffe paints orderly, puffy clouds on a horizon, Hackett paints disorderly rocks stacked into the highlands. O’Keeffe presents sky to ground, and Hackett contrasts ground with sky. Bookending Wandering with two trees with pillowy foliage, Hackett seems to pay O’Keeffe tribute.
On occasion, Hackett has included found stones or souvenirs collected assembled at the base of her large work. This action, however, is missed in this show. Not to be overlooked, on entry are two small works in a series called Cloud, Rocks, Trees. Compact, coarse, and cartoonish, these works sum up Hackett’s current direction.
In a self-published treatise that Bluemner wrote, “without imagination, painting fails of its greatest power and beauty.” Hackett imparts to landscape not only imagination but also a dynamic experience of memory, materiality, and abstraction.
“Theresa Hackett: The Scenic Route,” High Noon, 68 Reade Street, New York, NY. Through February 1, 2025.
About the author: Jason Andrew is an independent curator and writer based in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. Follow him on Instagram: @jandrewarts
It’s a fabulous show and this review captures so much of what makes it so. To reiterate: “In a self-published treatise that Bluemner wrote, “without imagination, painting fails of its greatest power and beauty.” Hackett imparts to landscape not only imagination but also a dynamic experience of memory, materiality, and abstraction.”
great show!