Inness Hancock: New Beginnings

Inness Hancock New Beginnings

I create large-scale contemplative landscape and abstract oil paintings which represent an intimate bond between nature and spirit. I develop richly saturated, layered paintings, focusing on transparency and gesture to create dynamic, bold compositions that contrast with a subtle and well-defined palette. Referencing historical narrative painting I reimagine a feminine point of view.

My use of flowers and gardens are a vehicle to explore and experience relationships of the human soul to nature and the divine. I continue to explore the “reality of the unseen”, and work to continue the legacy of American landscape painting through a contemporary lens.

In my series “Persephone’s Garden” I was inspired to use the time and space held in gardens to reference botanical themes on a scale that invites intimacy. During this time of political upheaval and pain around women’s rights in their bodily autonomy, I felt compelled to bring into question the time immediately before and after Persephone’s abduction by Hades. The Hollyhocks paintings represent the Spring before the abduction and “The Weight of Silence” in composition, somber color, and deliberate feeling of emptiness, after.

My practice includes making on-site watercolor studies and notebooks sketches, during which I am sensitive to the energy and history of the location. Using a traditional palette inspired by 19th Century painters, I build layers of transparent glazes to achieve richness and depth and seek to connect with the sacredness of nature through loose, intuitive strokes. Referencing historical narrative painting, I am deeply interested in examining time and memory through place, and work in an autobiographical way, creating imagery with narrative and conversational qualities.

In my abstract work, I search for clarity by eliminating direct references. This leaves room for the total immersion in the feeling of a place and time; it’s about revealing authentic experience rather than illustrating a place. Ultimately, my goal as an artist is to create works that transcend the boundaries of the physical world and invite the viewer to contemplate the sublime. By exploring the interplay between abstraction and representation, I hope to create a space for reflection and contemplation, and to invite the viewer to connect with the beauty and power of the natural world in new and meaningful ways.

Inness Hancock 2023

Awakening, 2023 Oil on canvas: 60 x 48 inches

White Hollyhocks, Large, 2023 Oil on canvas: 60 x 48 inches

Melinoe, 2023 Oil on canvas: 60 x 48 inches

Peonies, 2023 Oil on canvas: 54 x 60 inches

The Valley is Quiet, 2023 Oil on canvas: 36 x 48 inches

You Can’t Cry for Me, 2023 Oil on canvas: 36 x 36 inches

After the Rain, 2023 Oil on canvas: 40 x 40 inches

Freya, 2023 Oil on canvas: 36 x 36 inches

Hollyhocks, While the Rain Softly Fell, 2023 Monoprint: 29 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Pale Pink Hollyhocks, 2023 Monoprint: 29 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Light Blue and Red Hollyhocks, 2023 Monoprint: 29 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Blue Hollyhock, 2023 Monoprint: 29 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Pink Hollyhock, 2023 Monoprint: 29 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Blush, 2023 Oil on panel: 10 x 8 inches

Flush, 2023 Oil on panel: 10 x 8 inches

Watercolor Hollyhocks, 2023 Watercolor on paper: 11 x 8.5 inches

Lucid Joy, 2023 Watercolor on paper: 11.75 x 8.75 inches

Hollyhocks, Watercolor, 2023 Watercolor on paper: 8.25 x 5.25 inches

Inness Hancock is a painter whose work builds upon tradition to re-define the concept of American Landscape Painting for the 21st century. Her finely-honed skills are rooted in enduring techniques and themes. The influence of her great uncle George Inness, the American painter, is seen in her deference to beauty and technique, but her unique gift lies in exploring an expanded sense of “landscape” – not just the visual experience of the external world, but the inner landscape of the human mind and spirit. Hancock synthesizes outer and inner realms into compositions displaying nuance of color, texture, depth, and contrast.

Her engagement with spiritual themes has had broad impact. Her artwork was referenced in The Spiritual in Art, a 2015 thesis written by Yale Divinity student Betsy Moss. Hancock has fostered the opportunity for greater conversation around sacred topics. She founded Children’s Prayers for the People, an international, non-denominational, arts-based project that invites children aged 4-16 to share their art among communities.

As a natural extension of her aesthetic integrity and creative experimentation, Hancock pursued successful careers as both art dealer and interior designer.

Hancock cultivates a deep respect for nature, and is committed to the conservation of wildlife and historic and natural landmarks. She has painted in 26 World Heritage Unesco Sites. She was awarded an Artist Residency by Arte Studio Ginestrelle in Assisi, Italy, and by the US Dept of Interiors to paint California’s Whiskeytown National Park. She was sponsored by the eco-conscious apparel brand BUFF. Her work resides in many private collections, and has been featured in exhibitions at venues including the Katonah Museum of Art and Chroma Fine Arts Gallery in Katonah, NY; Red Fox Gallery in Pound Ridge, NY; Downing/Yudain in Stamford, CT; Gallery 360 in Lancaster, PA; Wingspread Gallery in Northeast Harbor, ME; and Lindhurst Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Pleiades Gallery and Ceres Gallery in New York, NY, and The Carriage Barn Art Center in New Canaan, CT. She has served as Creative Director and a Board Member for Art in Store in Katonah, New York. She has twice curated Art Show Bedford in New York, and has been a CoChair and Advisory Committee Member of Global Fine Art Awards (GFAA). Inness Hancock lives and works in Bedford, NY and Northeast Harbor, ME.

The Barn @ Downing Yudain LLC info@art357.com www.art357.com All works in this catalogue are © 2024 Inness Hancock, courtesy of Downing Yudain LLC