Rain fascinated me as a child. At the slightest chance of a downpour, I would suit up in a jacket and boots and grab a net. Venturing outdoors, I attempted to catch the rain, performing a sort of dance with the environment. In those moments, nothing existed but the storm and me. Knowing I could not truly catch the rain, I had no goal in my dance – I moved intuitively and imaginatively. I was outside of the everyday and thrown into a world where I was truly free to play and interpret my surroundings. Nothing was so pure and human as the feeling I experienced in the presence of nature. Today I refer to this as intuitive wonder.
Intuitive wonder is central to my artwork. Experiences like those I had as a child expose people’s truest and deepest nature. Outside of our normal constructs, we discover and interpret the world in which we exist. Through this, we come to realize the depth of our own lives.
Today’s world provides little space for such wonder. At each person’s fingertips is the ability to remove intuition and interpretation. Whereas we once created our own imagery and developed our own ideas, technology is now equipped to take on the creative tasks people once performed. Instead of wholly new ideas and creative leaps, computers are able to draw entirely from the source material of others, creating a finite loop of ideas and experiences, distancing humanity from the true wonder of the world in which we live.
My artwork creates space for the viewer to disconnect from this loop and to reconnect with themselves on a basic, primal level. By providing objects and spaces outside of computerized interpretation, viewers are extricated from this limited pool of source material and are reconnected with their own intuitive wonder.
Statement
CV
EXHIBITION LIST
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
FALSE FRONT - Rabbithole, Brooklyn, NY January 2025
JOSHUA LEFF, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art – Altoona, PA Sep- Dec 2021
DEEPENED PERCEPTIONS, Radio Bean – Burlington, VT Oct - Dec 2015
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
MAREN HASSINGER- WE ARE ALL VESSELS- Susan Inglett Fine Art March- June 2021
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
LONGING FOR SOMETHING- Monira Foundation, MANA Contemporary Dec 2021-Jan 2022
NEW VOICES FOR THE TWENTIES- Susan Eley Fine Art July-August 2021
MICA GRAD SHOW III- Online Exhibition- 2020.micagradshow.com April- June 2020
PITCH AND PULSE- Broadmead Retirement Community, Cockeysville, MD Feb-March 2020
SUSPENDED DISBELIEF- Riggs Gallery, Baltimore, MD June 2019
HART ATTACK II- 479 Hart Street, Brooklyn, NY June 2019
SO FAR FROM HOME- The Crown, Baltimore, MD March- April 2019
INTERSECTING SPACES- Broadmead Retirement Community, Cockeysville, MD Feb- March 2019
DARK PASSENGER- Fox 3 Gallery, Baltimore, MD Jan-Feb 2019
WINTER SALON- Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY December 2018
FRESHLY PICKED RHINOS - Riggs Gallery, Baltimore, MD - Nov-Dec 2018
HART ATTACK - 479 Hart Street, Brooklyn, NY - July 2018
MAXWELL SHEPHERD FOUNDATION, Gallery of The Green, Canton, CT May - June 2016
SENIOR EXHIBITION - University of Vermont, Burlington, VT May 2016
MOLLY RUPRECHT EXHIBITION, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT April 2016
ONE ARTS ANNUAL, One Arts Collective – Burlington, VT Dec 2015-Jan 2016
BURLINGTON BEER COMPANY, Group Showing – Williston, VT June-July 2015
MOVING EARTH - Living and Learning Center Gallery, Burlington, VT April-May 2013
PUBLICATIONS
“Reflection/Absorption Exhibition.” Article by Blair Chamber of Commerce, Altoona, PA August 18, 2021
“The Poetic Grace of Maren Hassinger’s Vessels.” Article by Alexandra M.
Thomas, Hyperallergic. May 18, 2021
“Fall 2020 gratitude from Graduate Studies.” Article by the Maryland Institute
College of Art featured in Art & Education. Jan 22, 2021