Are We Friends Yet?

David Hanes’ last major series of work, Aware (2014), is enriched by absence. Consisting almost entirely of white space, what subjects might have been present in its many scenes are now merely intimated by smeared blushes of colour, like the residue that trails across low shutter speed photographs of objects in movement.

Ultimately, the presence of a discernible subject becomes a secondary curiosity. Fleetingness is the focus – the feeling of a quick passage. And in the digital era, when new efficiencies have primed us to swipe from art piece to art piece online at blurring speeds, this makes Aware feel as if it mirrors the inattentive attitudes we often hold against the internet’s spill of creative output.

Read the rest over at POSTmatter.