NowJournal recently visited an interesting exhibit of work by the artist H7L in the Eco-friendly household furnishings company Coco-Mat in the DDBuilding on the upper east side of Manhattan.

Hanne’s whimsical painting and sculpture Installation at Coco-Mat complimented the sublime offerings of Coco-Mat as also expressed by many visitors to the installation..

I spoke with Hanne ‘H7L’ about her work.

Hanne H7L: 

 I draw in all media.  My paintings, wire sculptures, collages, manipulated digital prints, etc.are all essentially drawings  that I use in my installations.

I often use animals as symbols of nature and partake of the cycle of life and death by using recycled and healthy materials whenever possible.

My Wolfman, which you just saw gliding through the introduction at www.H7L.com, is part man, part animal, a composite figure intended to remind us all of our frequently forgotten connection to the natural world.

With modern technology in danger of going too far, I feel there is a great risk of becoming too slick. Even in my digital drawings I try to show the distinctive touch of a human hand, often by juxtaposing or superimposing my Wolfman mark on my work.  All of my art is rooted in ecology and is about nature, health and life versus artificiality, disease and destruction.  

I strive for a sane and healthy world. Growing up in Denmark I just naturally preferred what is healthy such as not white bread but dark (Rugbroed), fruits especially apples, and I never really cared about sweets.

When I moved to USA  San Francisco in 1970’s I was shocked seeing all the garbage all over that was when I really started getting into ecology. Further more when U.C. Berkeley changed my life from Pharmacy to Art.

I was from the very beginning concerned about the materials we artists use in our art. Starting out with oil paint I realized that everybody were using terpentine to clean the brushes which is carcinogenic. I quickly changed to acrylic paint, but here most people used somethi

ng in a nameless container called Rhoplex to mix into the paint. which is also carcinogenic. I decided then to try printing. Later on I went into Installations and I went so far in my search for healthy materials for making art that I created “The Onion Universe” Installation in 1983 in La Jolla in CA where I mostly reused archival print paper and the skin of onions see www.H7L.com Installations, as that at least could not hurt the environment or anything living. The Museum Of Modern Art in New York City

has my “Onion Universe” Artist’s Book in their Collection.

When I arrived in NYC Fall of 1983 I “Onionized the Big Apple” www.H7L.com Performance, I planted onions around seven buildings where I found there were pollution like Con Edison and the Stock Exchange which was polluted by RACKETEERING AND SECURITIES  FRAUD by the Gang or wolf pack of wall street in 1980’s the leader, was the epitome of wall street GREED,  Michael Milken ‘the Junk Bond King’ was sent to prison 1989–Ivan Boeski one of the pack.

NYC was still in the 90’’s full of garbage and drug dealing and when I was selected by the Cultural department of NYC for an Artist’s studio in East Village I did what I could to clean up. I painted a mural on our House I called “Good Against Evil” (see www.H7L.com Paintings/Installation) and three months later 29 drug dealers from our block was caught and imprisoned for life. It changed the block a lot and all the graffity disappeared and I felt it was caused by the effect of my mural.

Working with the City, I also got 12 trees planted on our block.  Now in 2017 NYC has been able to get the garbage organized and recycled which I am happy about.    

I am so pleased to be working with Coco-Mat, an environmentally positive company with great product design, and hope to collaborate more in the future.

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MC Anton  NowJournal.com