Heidi Hahn: When the Body Turns Other
Studio portrait of Heidi Hahn. Photo by Benjamin Chertoff. Courtesy of the artist
“The only relationship I have with the work is here, while I’m making it. That’s when I’m learning from it,” says artist Heidi Hahn, to whom markmaking is an individual, intimate form of protest. Engaging with the experience of existing and aging in a uterine body, her paintings straddle the threshold between abstraction and figuration, featuring broad brushstrokes, expansive fields of color, and outlines that vaguely resemble bodily silhouettes. In an interview with Xuezhu Jenny Wang, Hahn discusses how the body becomes “other” in a society that silences women’s voices, the liberating capacities of abstraction, as well as how her show NOT YOUR WOMAN at Michael Kohn Gallery fits within the larger context of current affairs.
Xuezhu Jenny Wang: The press release mentioned that you reject figuration, but when I look at your work, I see skin tones and mimetic qualities. Can you speak more about how figuration and abstraction interact in your work?
Heidi Hahn: I'm definitely interested in the body, but not in figuration as a one-to-one representation of reality. I’ll always talk about the body in my work, but when I say I want to leave figuration behind, I mean how it’s currently represented and utilized. By breaking apart this idea of representation, I can speak about the body in a more universal way.
Even when you mention skin tones—I'm not sure they represent flesh, necessarily. The palette just helps hold things together visually. When it comes to abstraction, I don’t even know what “abstraction” is anymore. I wouldn’t say I’m making abstract paintings now. I’m still talking about the body. If the work is seen as abstracted from reality, fine. But I’m not trying to make something purely about material. For me, content and material have to go hand in hand. Ultimately, I can only paint from my own experience. So I ask myself: How do I use my body? How am I aging? How did I feel as a younger woman? I’m also thinking about an amalgamation of people—girlfriends, sisters, etc. Maybe the works are more narrative than figurative.
I find abstraction liberating. As I age, my body feels like it becomes “other,” and I feel that more every year. Eventually, we return to the earth. Not to sound bleak, but abstraction feels like a shorthand for talking about how I experience my own body.
Heidi Hahn, NOT YOUR WOMAN #6 (2025). Oil on canvas, 90 1/8 × 76 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery
XJW: Can you elaborate on the idea of the body becoming “other”? Do you see that as a universal part of aging, or is it particular to the feminine experience?
HH: I think we’re living in a time when our bodies are increasingly physically and metaphorically discarded. With AI, social media, and all these manipulations, there's no real ownership anymore. Especially with laws that are stripping away agency, it’s frightening. My work often explores themes of being torn apart, disappearing, or dissolving.
Materially, I try hard to assert agency in the work. With abstraction, there’s a refusal—you can’t grasp the whole thing, and that becomes a kind of freedom. For me, abstraction is a form of protest. It’s my way of saying: you don’t get to have this. You don’t get the full story or the whole body. I often work out of anger and out of a desire for the freedom I don’t feel in real life.
XJW: You said abstraction is liberating. Is that liberation for the bodies you represent, or for you as an artist?
HH: Both. It’s freeing not to adhere to the current rules of representational art, especially portraiture. Breaking away from “how things are supposed to look” is powerful. If I had to reconstruct the body, how would I want to see it? I want complexity, something unfamiliar.
As artists, we're trying to make something that doesn’t yet exist. Everything’s so homogeneous now. And femininity is still wrapped up in the male gaze and acceptable nude forms. I’m tired of it. I'm not interested in caricature either, which I think is actually dangerous. We need to be repurposing things instead of recycling old tropes.
Installation view of Heidi Hahn: NOT YOUR WOMAN. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery.
XJW: Caricature is an interesting point. It reminds me of how early Cubism saw a break from artistic traditions through works like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. But at the same time, one must also keep in mind the valid feminist critiques against the piece’s portrayal of women and Picasso’s misogyny.
HH: I actually love that painting. I don’t have to approve of Picasso as a person, but the work broke something open. Same with de Kooning’s Woman series. I’m sure those men weren’t deeply invested in the complexities of women, but they were invested in breaking tradition.
XJW: What first propelled you to explore the body in your work?
HH: I think it came from growing up at a certain time. I went to Cooper Union around 2001, and it was still a very sexist environment. I was making figurative work then and was often dismissed because the focus at the time was on conceptual art, installation, or video. Figurative painting wasn’t taken seriously. I felt constantly undermined and underestimated. And I think the way I paint now is, in a way, seeking revenge. It’s like I have a kind of bloodthirst to prove everyone who didn’t trust my vision wrong.
Even now, I don’t feel fully seen or heard as an artist, despite having painted since I was 15. I’m 42 now, and I’m still fighting. I hope younger artists don’t feel that way, but I do. And honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling that way. When you grow up constantly being questioned, it’s hard to shake that. You always carry a chip on your shoulder.
But I don’t mind that. It’s not bitterness—it’s anger, and I’m okay using that. It fuels the work. That anger, that sense of not being seen—that’s where the work comes from.
Heidi Hahn in her studio. Photo by Benjamin Chertoff. Courtesy of the artist
XJW: Would you consider yourself a radical feminist? Would you consider feminism to be a spectrum/range of ideologies?
HH: I was talking to my assistant about this the other day—she’s 23—and I asked her, “What does it mean to be a feminist for your generation? How does it make you feel, and how are you redefining it?” From what I gathered, there’s still a sense of empowerment, but it’s more about respect. Not just equality, but respect.
Am I radical? I don’t know. I hate everything, so maybe that makes me radical. What I’m doing feels like an individual form of protest, but I don’t know if that alone is enough to call it radical. I do have an inherent sense of who I am, how I exist in the world, and what I deserve. And I don’t think that should be radical—that should be normal.
XJW: This body of work presented in NOT YOUR WOMAN was made after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, right?
HH: Yes, it was made during that time. Originally, the work was meant for a show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York, but the gallery shut down just two months before my solo show. So the work became about disappointment and loss. There was a lot of emotional baggage attached. And when the Supreme Court decision happened, I was working from a place of anger. But eventually, that anger gave way to exhaustion. Or rather, I thought I was working from anger, but I was really stuck in grief—grief on both a personal and public level.
XJW: Does anger translate into your visual language?
HH: Yes, definitely. I’m getting much more explicit with the anger. Before, there were private signifiers of protest or pain, but now it’s more in-your-face. It’s like, “Oh, is this what you want? Fine. I’ll give you the violence. I’ll give you everything—and you’re not going to like it.”
There’s a freedom in that. I’ve given up trying to be subtle. I’ve let go of the quiet intellectualism or formalism that used to define my work. I don’t know if I believe in visual intimacy right now. I believe in being explicit.
Heidi Hahn, NOT YOUR WOMAN #9 (2025). Oil on canvas, 86 1/4 × 70 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery
XJW: Why is the show titled NOT YOUR WOMAN?
HH: I was thinking about that phrase, The future is female. We were promised that future, and now it feels like it was taken from us. The original title was going to be Not Your Woman, Not Your Future. It’s like: “Not for you. Get out. Don’t even look at me.” It’s kind of like that movie Election (1999) with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, where one candidate’s campaign slogan is along the lines of “Vote for me. Don’t vote for me. I don’t care.” And they win. That’s how I feel. Figuration often solicits love or understanding from the viewer. I don’t need that, and maybe that’s the ultimate form of power, especially when you’re putting on a big show. I can’t care about being liked.
XJW: Would you consider your art political?
HH: I think most art is, even if it doesn’t intend to be. For me, I’m protesting expectations. I’m expressing anger, as a woman, which is powerful because we’re often not allowed to do that. On a micro level, I think it’s political. Maybe if someone relates to the work and it helps them name what they’re feeling, that gives them a kind of power. But I don’t think of it as political on a larger scale. I’m not that kind of artist.
XJW: Why not?
HH: I grew up working class, and I had to work incredibly hard to put myself through school. I’ve lived in the real world, where just survival—making rent, buying food—is what matters. And honestly, those things are still a concern. Back then, it all felt so bleak that the idea of being solely in the arts felt like such a privileged position. I don’t take that for granted—I really don’t. So, do I think art is going to save the world? No. But I do think it’s necessary to have a world. That matters. I do teach. I work with young people, and I do see hope in them. And you have to remember: they’ll be here long after I’m gone. I have to believe they’ll do the right thing.
I don’t kid myself into thinking I’m doing something grand or heroic. I’m too self-aware for that. I don’t know if I’m going to change anything. But if I can change myself, be part of a different conversation, or even shift the conversation slightly, that would be really meaningful to me.
Heidi Hahn: NOT YOUR WOMAN is on view at Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, from April 25 to June 6, 2025.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
