may. 6, 2011 – jun. 25, 2011 The Orchestra of the Damned
The variety of the exhibited works reflects the 60-year period spanning the artist’s early paintings (dated 1951) to a recently created series of collages and mixed media on wood and paper.
In his paintings in oil paint and mixed media, Hart visually forges a concretized world of highly personal mythologies.
The central platform of the exhibition is Hart’s recent series of oil paintings, “The Orchestra of the Damned”, in which he creates a compelling metaphor on an anti-war theme, one engaging a contrapuntal collision between the beauty of music and the brutality of war. The figurative musicians in the paintings are all veterans of foreign wars. Much of his work represents complex reformulations through collage; these are deeply personal and symbolically relevant images on wood and paper. The artist has also created three-dimensional works on wood using collage and mixed media on various objects. Besides these paintings in oil and mixed media, Hart engages in book art; here he utilizes a style resonant of Gothic imagery and the visual power of medieval illustrated manuscripts.