Yaron Michael Hakim
My work draws on personal history, namely the rootlessness of
my peripatetic early life and my interstitial experiences of global
culture. Hovering between abstraction and figuration, my practice
builds on an ongoing interest in ritual, the sublime, history,
wanderlust, place, and placelessness. My paintings mine, among
other sources, visual elements drawn from the Los Angeles
cityscape, indigenous textiles and patterns, remote islands in an
atlas, and research into my ancestral linage as discovered through
an mtDNA test. Painted on used Dacron (polyester) sailcloth and
pinned directly onto the wall, the materials I use subtly suggest a
hidden narrative of movement and utility. These works reflect the
richness of subjective encounters with “foreign” places.