About the Artist
Haley Hasler works exclusively in the realm of the painted self-portrait and represents herself as a central point in an endlessly revolving domestic drama. Hasler illustrates the joys, fantasies, theatrics, realities and challenges of being both a devoted mother and an artist in a world that tells women that they can have it all with a flourishing career and parenthood. Hasler depicts the joy, frustration and humor of family life through carnival colors, extravagant costumes, and elaborate surroundings. Hasler states “I conceive of a painting as a kind of theater, a stage set for my characters and protagonists.” Through her life events coupled with fiction and fantasy, Hasler explores the role of women in today’s society through the lens of art history, culture and domesticity.
The self-portrait confronts the viewer with an outward representation of the inner self. Here is the exterior as seen by the interior.
The self-portrait as a character introduces a further element. While the self-portrait implies that the artist is showing us the truth, a representation of the exterior in disguise conveys the impossibility and doubleness of this endeavor.
Through the seemingly private world of self-portraiture and autobiographical narrative, I hope to present a compelling fictive world, without dictating a precise narrative or relying on a static symbolism. I try to invest the figure with an iconic confrontability – making it operate both as self-portrait and archetypal heroine.
Painting impels me to cross the border freely between the universe of things and the universe of the imagination. The former involves an urgent encounter between the eye and the exterior world, while the latter contains the interior universe of memory, history, narrative, and desire.
