Roter Faden 2019

Eckart Hahn made this painting titled Roter Faden. I love how Hahn builds up this image of a tiger with a kind of hyper-realism that then veers off into something much more strange. This tiger is beautiful and precise, a real masterclass in observation and technique. But look closer and you notice the red rope, which is kind of binding it. The rope makes the tiger into something more like a puppet, with the suggestion of a human face contained inside its own. There’s a push and pull here between realism and surrealism that’s really intriguing. It reminds me of Magritte, but with a contemporary twist. Hahn is playing with ideas of control and identity. What does it mean to be bound or defined by something external? It leaves you with more questions than answers, and that’s what makes it so compelling.