ERIN HINZ

CAN I CALL YOU MOTHER?

Curated by Ali Rossi

September 8 - September 13, 2021

Olympia is pleased to present , Can I Call You Mother, a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Erin Hinz. These works evidence Hinz iconoclastic approach to art historical representations of motherhood.

Mother of plants, eggs, cattle, and dog - who has deep enough pockets to raise a kid these days? Olympia is proud to present Can I Call You Mother?, Erin Hinz’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. 

In 2017, Erin Hinz adopted Timmy, a chihuahua yorkie mix. 

Motherhood, as a contemporary subject, serves as a locus for investigating socio-political issues related to one's own body, surroundings, and economic position. The topic has long been explored by painters throughout art history.

Painting ‘Masters’ such as Raphael and Jan van Eyke took up much space in suggesting maternal iconographies, specifically with the understanding of religion as culture. Parenting looks vastly different today, often with little religious associations. New definitions and interpretations of motherhood have struggled to gain acceptance, often offending proponents of old tropes. Hinz whimsically nods to archaic suggestions and relishes in contemporary deviations. Through tight palettes and bold pentimenti, Hinz pokes fun at the serious attitude towards kinship that painting has historically upheld.

In a powerful dance between quasi-cartoonish figuration and abstraction, Erin Hinz revels in contemporary forms of mothership. She asserts herself as caring, feminine, domestic, and playful--characteristics that earnest painters never (traditionally) wanted to embody. Hinz takes small, everyday moments, and stretches them. Timmy is Jesus, eggs are anthropomorphic, bodies meld into each other, plants speak. Absurdly improbable scenarios are imagined before and through the painting process. Hinz expands the rhetorical arsenal of painting by looking to her surrounding environment and exploring the many nuanced forms motherhood takes on today.