CHART is pleased to present our eighth PROJECTION exhibition, Retinal Loop, a solo presentation of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Lauren Anaïs Hussey. Featuring six works on canvas, the exhibition, Hussey’s debut solo show, will open with a reception on Friday, March 15, from 6–8pm, and remain on view through April 27, 2024.

Hussey makes works that interrogate the thresholds of intelligibility in image and text through the language of abstraction. In her latest body of paintings, she layers abstracted images of shiny surfaces casually captured from everyday life with enlarged versions of process-oriented calligraphic drawings.

Hussey is interested in moments of perceptual doubt, and the various paradoxes wrapped up in them; a reflective surface such as the inside of an elevator obscures what it is reflecting, and a signature on a document is the most binding aspect of it yet  usually cannot be read. Through a use of both metallic pigments and trompe l’oeil rendering of metal surfaces and script, her paintings optically hum, not quite disorienting the viewer, but at all moments causing them to wonder what they are looking at, and what its relationship is to the tangible world. Her work attempts to slow images down, aiming to, as she states, “keep the looker looking.”

What inspired the latest paintings for Retinal Loop? What elements are new to this particular body of work?

In Retinal Loop, my aim was in getting the paintings to reflect impenetrable states where a reveal exists at the edge, perpetually out of reach. Initially, my reference material for the backgrounds was coming from a mix of personal photos & stock photography from manufacturing catalogs. The newer element in this body of work has expanded to include images of spaces where I found myself engulfed by the reflective surfaces. For example, an elevator or the metal-clad walls of a diner.

The Space Between, 2024
Oil on canvas
55 x 47 in (139.7 x 119.4 cm)

Gift in Space, 2024
Oil on canvas
18 x 18 in (45.7 x 45.7 cm
)

The surfaces of these canvases are covered in hovering script reminiscent of inky calligraphy. How do you go about generating these marks and how do they inform the larger abstractions?

I use calligraphy tools, metal nibs and ink, to make drawings on paper that are intuitive. The tools give a distinct quality to the lines in the work. It’s a very quick fraction of my studio time that helps loosen the connection between my mind and hand. This taps into a more gut- knowing, something that manifests from the body. Typically, only one out of four drawings will make it onto the paintings. In the effort of sizing up and painting every peculiarity of the inked composition, there is a translation that occurs. The ways color and light interact with the metallic surfaces, show that the environment is always a hint, much like the illegible scripts in my work.

What role does language play in your practice? Is communication—or lack thereof— important in your work?

Language plays a large role in my work. As a bilingual person, I understand the divides and barriers that arise between people who know and people who don’t. The comfort in the illegible script is one of universality, no one knows! Growing up, I listened to a lot of world music, and would learn the words of songs in tongues different from my own. Through this, I found that language isn’t flat, it’s dimensional. I believe that written language is incapable of delivering the entirety of experience or meaning. Is the environment that language sits within is more communicatively dense than what written language is able to convey?

What’s your first memory of being impacted by art?

I’ll share two experiences, since they’re both ways when I was most notably & initially impacted by art. The first is when I was about three or four. I was at my grandmother’s home in Tampa, FL and I was bored out of my gourd! I began scribbling with a pencil on the wall and my grandmother sat relaxed on a chair to watch. She encouraged me to keep going and even provided me with additional markers and crayons. I ended up scrolling this scene of Jetson-like televisions and people sitting with their backs turned toward the viewer. I liked how she found it enjoyable to look at and I felt the thrill of making something where there was nothing.

The second experience was when I was studying abroad in Italy. While walking through the Vatican’s collection at the Musei Vaticani, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a painting. It was an artwork by Nicolas Poussin of the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus. It’s a grueling scene depicting a disembowelment. It was an overwhelming visceral event for me, not only because of the shocking imagery, but also in Poussin’s use of color.

If you could collect any one artist, who would it be?

The answer to this question changes with the day. If I had to choose an artist, right this in this moment, it would be Max Ernst.

What song(s) do you have on repeat right now?

I’ve been listening to a bevy of different songs, gravitating towards Big Beat heavy- hitters and Jungle classics. It’s music that makes my heart beat fast.

What are you obsessed with lately?

The see-through devices of early 2000s tech.

If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?

If I weren’t an artist I would be a chef. I love to cook with and for others, it’s been a keystone of my family on both sides of parents.