On storytelling, seriality, and a shared love of clichés.
The Feeling Good Handbook came from an interest in a rarely-pictured private vulnerability, a kind of contemplative doubt or ambiguity, that, in spite of the endless feed of images that offer "access" to the lives of others (trips taken, meals eaten, fun had), feels under-represented—so much so that its absence risks tricking us into wondering if only we feel uncertain, awkward, or lonely.
What drew me to showing Heidi Hahn and Shana Moulton together is the interplay of their shared willingness to go toward this vulnerable place when many of us are running the other way: their openness to putting their own neurosis, searching, and even just plain "blah-ness" on full display. For Heidi, the unflinching ordinariness of her female figures makes them more worthy of painting, not less. And Shana treats her alter-ego’s hapless quest for spiritual fulfillment at Color-Me-Mine with affection rather than judgement.
Human experience remains messy and ambivalent; I feel a kind of reassuring generosity in their exploration of those more difficult aspects, as if through their work they’re saying to all of us: “You’re not alone!”
—Jordana Zeldin, curator
Read the full interview here.