Hanna Hur at Kristina Kite

At Kristina Kite, Hanna Hur’s paintings match the gallery’s signature checkered floor. Yet, unlike the floor, Hur’s paintings, many of which include delicately laid checker-boards and grids, are sensitive portals which carry a delicate and mystical energy. Anges Martin comes to mind — work in which a firm dedication to linear space doesn’t eschew a spiritual bent. 

“It’s a struggle to keep our perceptual step in sync with the metronome of her enveloping canvases,” reads a statement accompanying the show. In addition her grids, radial lines emanate outward in many works, like energetic fields that pull towards a central focus. Hur often applies colored pencil directly to her canvas, bringing attention to the canvas’ own subtle irregularities. 

In Muse ii, the loose framework of a room is drawn with perspectival space, though a checkered floor disobeys the perspective, using a standard checkered grid rather than a warped perspective to create the illusion of space. At the meeting of each wall, red, fetal-like shapes hover, mirroring each other as they barely touch. The subtle tension of the mystical objects paired with the oddity of the perspective holds the viewer in a strange space of unfolding, as if the work’s layered meaning might slowly unfurl if you only ask the right questions.

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Photo: Hanna Hur, Red Ecstatic (installation view) (2021). Image courtesy of the artist and Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Paul Salveson.