Artwork copyright Judith Hahn. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Artwork copyright Judith Hahn. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

M.S./Ferns III, 1992

Judith Hahn
(American, born 1941, died 1999)

Location: Stratton Elementary, Newport

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

M.S./Ferns III is part of artist Judith Hahn's body of Northwest landscape paintings that capture light and shadow using negative space and impressionistic colors. She notes that this composition, which features collaged fabric, is part of a series that specifically explores "the play of light on the ferns and vines and trunks that make up the forest floor anywhere in Puget Sound." About the collaged fabric in the artwork, Hahn says that they "create little up-close 'surprises' for viewers."

This piece was selected for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's 1994 touring art exhibition.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Newport School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Painter and printmaker Judith Hahn (1941-1999) was interested in color and light, as seen in nature.
Hahn lived and worked in Woodinville, Western Washington. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1981 at age forty, her artistic process and style evolved to accommodate her physical limitations. Using a wheelchair limited her range of motion and the size of the artworks that she could create. As a result, she started created diptychs, or two-panel artworks, where she could combine two panels to make one larger artwork. She noted, "Because my disability severely limits my mobility, I work (in studio) from photographs we take in the field, although I often use only part of a photographic image, or combine several."
Hahn earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University. During the 1990s, several of her artworks were donated to support the Multiple Sclerosis Society.