Excerpts from the catalog

I am so pleased with Max Presneill's essay for the catalog. Max and I talked in the studio on a couple of occasions and he brought up quite a lot that I had been thinking about, using different words and frames of references. The first time Max walked in the studio, within 5 minutes or less he asked if I liked Albert Oehlen. Then he brought up Camus' The Plague and the idea of futility and responsibility. We're two for two at this point, so the rest of the conversation was equally delightful.

From the second visit which was more of an interview, I give you some excerpts from the catalog....

Hackett’s paintings are evolutionary in the sense that each mark, each reactive gestural movement is made in a non-prescribed way and either succeeds or fails according to its suitability in context with the larger organism of the picture plane ...

..... It is the attempt to reconcile the minute-by-minute choices, to fulfill a hidden promise and to transcend the sum of its parts – without reference to spirituality but to ‘fact-ness’ – that grounds these paintings.

There's more, but I'm bleary-eyed right now, and besides, wouldn't it be nicer to read it in print?