Window Dressing XXXII: Emma Hadzi Antich
Image: Emma Hadzi Antich, Quiet Eye, detail of installation.
Exhibition Dates: November 20th - December 4th, 2023 (on view 24 hours/day)
Artist Reception: Friday, November 24th, 6-8pm
Societies that are fixated on individual achievement often grapple with loneliness, isolation, and purposelessness. A cultural emphasis on autonomy comes at a cost. The illusion that the mountain peak exists without valleys has worn thin and we can no longer pretend that the individual thrives without the community. There is a perceptible public yearning to exchange independence with interdependence.
I am interested in this growing desire for community, and I employ mountains as a symbol for human connection. My paintings serve as a reminder that mountain peaks do not exist in isolation but that they belong to a greater land formation. Although our social condition looks like a landscape of loneliness, I think we can aspire to find balance between the personal and the collective. There are mountain peaks within the mountain chain, but they are connected by ridgelines, slopes, foothills, and valleys. The summits are worthy painting subjects, but so too are the pathways that tie them together.
My art is an aspirational visual narrative for those who are ready to remember that human beings are social creatures. My goal in creating this installation is to awaken a hopefulness that we can overcome our isolation and rediscover the joy of belonging together. My artwork aims to refocus attention on our collective need for each other and the profound fulfillment that comes from nurturing our communities.
Bio
Emma Hadzi Antich's symbol-scapes provide unquiet evidence of estrangement from communities, both environmental and cultural. In her paintings, figurative mountains and rigid figures search for common ground and collective purpose. Hadzi Antich reconfigures the iconographic insistence of legible teleology to emphasize the post-modern, western absence of collective mythos and shared rituals. Hadzi Antich’s work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums including exhibitions with Carlson Tower Gallery (Chicago, IL), Beacon Gallery (Boston, MA), Graphite Gallery, (New Orleans, LA) Northern Southern (Austin, TX), and The Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX). She has had two solo exhibitions, with her most recent one at Julia C. Buteridge Gallery (Austin, TX). She completed a painting residency at Centre Pompadour in France and an installation residency at Really Small Museum in Texas. Hadzi Antich currently lives and works in Austin, TX.
