Hernan Bas - The Hallucinations of Poets - Victora Miro - London

7 Oct - 13 Nov 2010

The American painter Hernan Bas's practice has always been intrinsically linked to an exploration of literature and the written word. For an exhibition earlier this year, Bas presented works referencing the American Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott) - or, in Bas's words, the 'original hippies', as their writing suggests a 'back to nature' perspective. In The Hallucinations of Poets, Bas delves into the more foreboding preoccupations of Dark Romanticism. Whilst Poe, Melville, Hawthorn and Dickinson shared the belief with the Transcendentalists that nature is a deeply spiritual force, they took an inherently sinister stance to the Transcendentalists' innately optimistic views. For these Dark Romantics, the natural world is full of shadows, decay, mystery, ghosts and death. These works, the first series in Bas's oeuvre to directly address the realm of poetry, are characterized by a sombre palette and charged, mysterious atmospheres.

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