Biography | Statement

Bio

Emily Hirn is an Atlanta-based artist who works in oil and charcoal.  She is represented by Frameworks Gallery in Atlanta (www.frameworksgallery.com), GA. Ms. Hirn works in oil and charcoal.

Ms. Hirn holds a BFA cum laude from the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Design. Ms. Hirn is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta and is a recipient of an Artistic Honors Fellowship.

From 2003 to 2008, Ms. Hirn was a member of the faculty, teaching drawing and design, at Bauder College in Atlanta. Ms. Hirn was an adjunct member of the faculty at Portfolio Center, in Atlanta, teaching painting to college level students. Most recently, Ms.Hirn is collaborating with the Emory College of Medicine on a innovative program entitled "Art for Surgeons".  She is a juried member of the Portrait Society of Atlanta. Her paintings have received numerous awards from the American Impressionist Society. Her work has been published in "Strokes of Genius" and "Artists Magazine".

In addition to an ambitious studio and plein-air painting schedule, Ms. Hirn continues her mentoring under noted artist Albert Handell, a program she began with Mr. Handell in 2003. Mr. Handell has numerous awards and one man shows to his credit. He is one of three living artists to be inducted by the Pastel Society of American into the Pastel hall of Fame. Ms. Hirn travels regularly for study, inspiration and subject matter.

Prior to painting full time, Ms. Hirn served eight years as advertising Art Director with Ogilvy & Mather and Young and Rubicam in Manhattan.

Artist Statement

"Painting offers a human experience in an increasingly automated, autonomous, and digitized world.  Painting does what technology cannot. It communicates on a primal level. 

The imperfect markings of the human hand. A quivering line, chaos controlled, unexpected color, evidence of the struggle and the mess. The sensuality of thick and thin paint, the mystery of blurred areas. All are desirable qualities.

I have come to feel that a painting should look like paint. It should exhibit what only paint can do and not try to be a photograph. Nor should it be a chaos of abstraction with disjointed elements.

A painting should revel in the drips, smears, transparent and opaque areas, the thick and thin texture, the saturated and monochromatic colors that are the intrinsic qualities of oil paint. The underlying abstract composition dictates placement of focus, leading the eye through the work, pulling one along, lingering, exiting through a path of sensual color.

The artist decides what to leave out, where to put the focus, what to push into the background, when to shout and when to whisper. Soft and hard edges, saturated and neutral color, high and low contrast, sensitive lines are powerful tools in skilled hands. This is the challenge.

I paint figures and I paint landscapes, both in oil. Often the two subject areas are combined. Abandoned buildings, unposed people, weeds against a sky. The subject matter is of equal importance to the abstract composition boiled down to shape, line and color.

The qualities that make a good paintings mirror the fullness of a human life. Happy and sad times, success and failure. In both, contrast and imperfection reign.

My hope is that I create in you the sensitivity to take pleasure in two colors I use side by side. Or the suggestion of a line that I, the artist, start and you the viewer, completes.
Of late, nature is increasingly my focus. My paintings put a frame around nature in hopes my viewers will see the perfection of what is being degraded and care enough to act.

 I consider my artwork, both landscape and figure, to be advocacy for the preservation and protection of nature.

In all my work, through the unspoken communication of color, line, composition and choice of subject matter, I seek the authentic, the truthful, the candid."

Emily Hirn
February, 2022

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