‘My work explores how subconscious mind relates to ‘darkness’ and ‘blackness’ and aims to depict the beauty, mystery and unexplained power that is associated with black skin’.
Christopher Hanson was classically trained at the London Academy of Representational Art (LARA), an atelier school that employs traditional, time-tested ways of teaching. His works take the form of large-scale realistic portraits of subjects, using traditional painting methods that present representations of Black bodies, and investigate his interest in painting Black skin. His works often explore the fear and fascination associated with dark skin and the depiction of the Black body as exotic, hyper-sexual and hypermasculine.
Image: Christopher Hanson, Dusk, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.