“Fairytale Morning, Chateau d’Amboise",” 9x12, 2022
“Dad’s Pond,” 9x12, 2021
About the Artwork
I have always studied my natural surroundings with an eye to the passage of time, seeing the landscape as a manifestation of the adage “the only constant is change.” What we think of as permanent is always in a state of movement: dunes shift, trees mature and fall, mountains erode. My goal is to represent the captured moments of my own memories, allowing the viewer to see the beauty and transience of nature as I do. Some of the pieces I have created are scenes that no longer exist; views that have been erased by the development of our rapidly growing county in the exurbs of Washington, DC. For me, these works serve as a kind of elegy for the past as we push on into the future.
About My Process
My process of creating art in the studio is experimental and varied. I also work outside (en plein air) whenever I have the chance as I find direct observation of light and the landscape to be the best teacher. Travel helps my process by providing the magic of that first impression in a new place as well as the brief moments of the journey that can easily be overlooked. The artwork is a record of my experiences, the footprints left behind after the dance is over.
It takes time for ideas to develop before I am ready to commit them to paper. Pastels offer immediacy and a directness which are an important foil to that “fermentation” period because they allow me to work quickly as my ideas evolve. I also work in other media, especially oils, and occasionally woodcut prints. Having learned to hand-spin yarn as a child, I also have a lifelong affinity for fiber arts and enjoy knitting and needle felting once in a blue moon.
Biography
Hope’s work has been included in numerous local, regional and national shows, including with the Pastel Society of America (NY), Virginia Beach Art Center, Washington County Museum of Fine Art (MD) and Alexandria Art League Gallery and the Alpharetta Arts Center (GA). She has been featured in Elan Magazine and was awarded Best Loudoun Artist by the Waterford Fair in 2015 and 2022. She is a Member of Excellence in the Southeastern Pastel Society and a Signature Member of the Maryland Pastel Society.
Originally from Richmond, Virginia, Hope Hanes has lived and worked in western Loudoun County, Virginia as an artist, arts advocate and teacher for over twenty-five years. She has BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she focused on painting and printmaking, and eventually earned her MAT in Museum Education from The George Washington University. Over the years, she gradually returned to her love of pastels, a medium well-suited to the expression of her artistic vision while being deeply satisfying in its physicality.
Hope is a co-founder and former Artistic Director of Round Hill Arts Center, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour as an annual celebration of Loudoun’s thriving art community. As an Art Educator for Loudoun County Public Schools, she balances her time between work, family life and beekeeping while pursuing continued artistic growth.
(click here for full CV)