Station | By Hadley Corwin
DESCRIPTION
Station - The EP is an extension of Mary Addison Hackett’s 2008 painting of the same name. The EP features Station prominently as its accompanying album artwork, working alongside auditory elements for a cohesive experience of sight and sound. Bringing music and visual art together reflects Hackett's exploration of synesthetic art. Hackett's artwork combes time, texture, memory, and media in a conglomeration of ideas and sensations. The orange hue used for the text color was taken directly from the painting and contrasts playfully against a milky white background that is reminiscent of a gallery wall. The vinyl and cassette themselves showcase details from Station, encouraging viewers to closely analyze Hackett’s bold brushstrokes and her expressive use of texture.
TRACK LIST
1. Light Blue (Live from Salle Pleyel, Paris, France/1969) - Thelonious Monk 2. Yellow - Pity Party (Girls Club)
3. Orange - CLAY
4. Green - Robohands
5. Grey - Saba
The EP’s track list represents Station’s dynamic multifariousness. Defying a single genre or sound, the album reflects the painting’s vibrant, sporadic splashes of color and texture. Each song was carefully chosen for its synesthetic relationship between color and sound, considering the emotions evoked through tone, tempo, melody, and rhythm.
INSPIRATION/INTENTION
My interpretation of Mary Addison Hackett’s Station (2008) as music album artwork is based on Hackett’s philosophy of painting as an everchanging experiential process, as opposed to a still, singular object. The viewer is meant to observe the painting on the vinyl sleeve or cassette tape case while listening to a lively collection of music clips and beautiful, emotive sounds that reflect Station’s joyful spontaneity. The piece is also nod to Hackett’s video artwork and her fascination with movement and blurring senses.
STATION IN CONTEXT
Hackett is a multidisciplinary artist born in 1961 working primarily with painting and video. Her artwork is a celebration of the act of art-making and the beauty of creating. She began her practice of expressive, abstract painting in the 1980s before moving over to video art and film editing in the attempt to surpass the limitations of tactile media. Station, the oil painting that the artist gifted Chapman University, is part of Hackett’s early 2000s expressionist painting revival. Made in 2008, Station is intuitive, wild and playful, experimenting with texture, shape, and composition through contrast and visual variety. The painting gives insight into Hackett’s study of ambiguity and her exploration into the process of dissecting and rearranging information. In a 2007 artist statement, Hackett wrote: “each mark reflects an ongoing dialogue, an open-ended exchange. I approach painting as a verb, rather than as a noun.”
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Art in Embassies. “Mary Addison Hackett.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, https://art.state.gov/personnel/mary_addison_hackett/.
Mary Addison Hackett lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee, where she grew up. After acquiring her BFA from the University of Tennessee and her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Hackett maintained a studio in Los Angeles. There, she experimented with both painting and video art. Hackett’s videos have been featured internationally at the Prague Film Festival and The Euro Underground Film Festival in Poland, as well as domestically at The Aurora Picture Show in Houston, Texas. Her paintings have also been exhibited across the United States and all over the globe, from Italy to Uruguay.
Terrell, Matthew. “Review: In ‘a Tin of Egyptian Cigarettes’ Mary Addison Hackett's Joy Is Inherent.” ARTS ATL, ARTS ATL, 26 Jan. 2016, https://www.artsatl.org/review-a-tin-egyptian-cigarettes-mary-addison-hackett/.
Joy is an consistent theme throughout Mary Addison Hackett’s solo show at the Marcia Wood Gallery. She often walks the line between folk artist and fine artist, realism and abstraction, collecting information from her daily life to put in her pieces. Her paintings are innately playful, with colors, textures, patterns, and painterly techniques such as drips and impasto. The most mundane scenes are transformed into something extraordinary through Hackett’s artistic eye and creative vision. Though her paintings are two-dimensional, they evoke a multi-sensory experience, recalling memories and melding past and present. Her paintings are chock full of information and provide fun, encouraging the viewer’s eye to roam around her paintings and soak up every moment of the experience.
Nolan, Joe. “Paint, Process & Poetry: Mary Addison Hackett at David Lusk in Nashville.” Burnaway, 7 Sept. 2020, https://burnaway.org/daily/paint-process-poetry-mary-addison-hackett-david-lusk-nashville/.
Critic and columnist Joe Nolan reviews Mary Addison Hackett’s show “Crazy Eyes” at David Lusk Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee. Hackett’s work is a diary of her interactions with the world around her, pouring her emotions and observations into her art. Nolan describes Hackett’s work as “vulnerable” and a celebration of imperfection. Her impulses and imagination run wild across her paintings in a way Nolan describes as “sensuous.” Hackett clearly has a deep love for her craft and the joyfulness in her creation is evident in glowing, vibrant, light-filled canvases. Studio Window is an interesting painting because it is a kind of self-portrait, giving a glimpse into the artist’s creative space and internal thought process.