The Figure: Trials and Tribulations

The Figure: Trials and Tribulations exhibit is a retrospective of Nancy Hanada’s exploration of the figure and monotype printing over the last six years. It documents her struggles with experimentation and balancing reality versus imagination in creating figures using the medium of monotype printing. It is a journey that includes triumphs, disasters and happy accidents.

The altered figures in these images endeavour to test the boundaries that identify the figure and thereby explore the human condition. The figures are inspired by open life drawing sketches, newspaper articles, advertisements and popular culture. In some cases, the essence of a figure is extracted and layered with expression in an effort to convert the actual into an alternative abstracted version of the image. By altering the traditional perception of proportion and colour in the figure, Nancy Hanada’s art invites the viewer to consider society’s influences on our identities and personas.

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Nancy Hanada is a Toronto-based emerging artist whose preferred mediums are printmaking, painting and mixed media. The figure, societal issues such as environmental conservation or the Ebola disease, the circle and the abstract landscape are topics that have been explored in her exhibited artwork in the past. These topics continue to be a source of inspiration. Her work has been exhibited and collected nationally.