TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING:  Child abuse/pedophilia/incest 

BEACON, NY — Confronting childhood trauma is a complicated journey, and filmmaker Sarah Hanssen has invited her art community to help her heal. As a child, Sarah was sexually abused by her father, who left her his abstract expressionist paintings after he passed. Sarah grew up in his studio, surrounded by the smells of gin and turpentine, ever shifting canvases and a string of his young girlfriends, and now has a difficult relationship with her father’s paintings that conceal mixed messages of obsession, secrets, freedom and selfishness. As part of a multi-phase creative project documenting her healing journey and culminating in a feature documentary film Two Things Are True, Sarah has invited over 30 artists to rework her father’s paintings and redefine their place in her family’s future. This December through January, Distortion Society’s Gallery Director Michelle Silver collaborates with Sarah Hanssen to co-curate a dynamic selection of these works. The group exhibition Two Things Are True opens December 14, 2024, with an opening reception from 7-9:30pm.

The work in the exhibition reveals stories of processing, healing, anger, acceptance, joy, love, and perseverance. Each artist was given the same prompt - to rework Sarah’s father’s artwork however they desired - and each artist interpreted this in wildly different ways. Brooklyn-based painter and multimedia artist Chris Nau approached what he called a “bad version of a minimalist painting” with contempt and destruction. He stripped the painting of its heavy, dark masculinity by aggressively creasing and rolling the canvas until the dark paint chipped off, revealing bright, hidden layers underneath. He battered, twisted, vacuumed, and reshaped the painting as a way to scoff at a man who hurt his friend. “Brave Child” is a tortured piece that bursts wide open, vulnerable and reborn.

John Ringhofer, an artist based out of Helsinki, Finland, used three of Sarah’s father’s works on paper to create his intricate “How to Erase a Scroll.” He converted the works into a miniature recording tape, winding two of the cut works onto reels and using the third as a painted base. He portrays a magnet below the reels to neutralize the energy contained in the original artwork. The quirky details evoke nostalgia and add a childlike comfort to the strength of the work.

Bloomington, Indiana based Melanie Cooper Pennington looks inward - and then outward - in her approach to an opaque bog-like painting. Barely visible in the swirl of dark shades, she finds a hidden space, a cave for resting or hiding. Using the cave as the central point, she paints over the original work and affixes it to a large piece of velvet to develop the larger composition. Creating a spinning world filled with emotion, the work is tightly bound, with competing forces struggling for dominance. 

Inspired by the biblical theme of Joseph processing his familial trauma, artist Chad Collins gifts a new narrative to Sarah. He utilizes traditional domestic crafts like sewing and embroidery to construct a miniature coat as an offering of a new home: one of hope, redemption and empowerment. Arielle Toelke assembles a series of nine flags titled “Signs of Bravery” by reconstructing monochromatic oil paintings on paper into representations of the moon. John Whitlock collages Sarah’s father’s work alongside his fragmented charcoal renderings. Melanie Delach incorporates her personal themes of working through trauma in a poisoned garden invigorated with a new spirit and growth. The exhibition will also include works by Gemma Bailey, Elizabeth Brunnemer, Candice Smith Corby, Stephen Halker, Jesse Jones, Joanna Muehleisen, Megan Prince, Fara Tucker, and Cecilia Vázquez.

One beautiful thread throughout the work is the artists’ unbridled support of Sarah’s journey. Their willingness to help her hold this private childhood trauma is a powerful display of community care. Sarah likened the process of sharing this so publicly and asking for help in this way to surgery, “it’s grotesque and you feel like your life’s on the line, but you are in the care of qualified professionals knowing that despite the risk, you are going to heal.” The work in this exhibition will not be for sale; Sarah and her older siblings - who are also working through the effects of their relationship to her father - will welcome this renewed work back into their homes. Sarah invites the public to experience the exhibition  in whichever way feels right to them, and perhaps with it they may be inspired to heal, feel joy and even have fun.