Check out John Hanacek’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Hanacek.

John, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
It started with photography. Aligning a moment and capturing it. A slice of time, mine to have and share. Growing up at the beach and being in the ocean juxtaposed with the photograph as the slice of time. The photo of the wave is caught immortal, but the wave itself always is being, and never for long. To capture something is to choose to minimize it, pass it through a portal of technique and technology for a new version of the same source to emerge on the other side of the artists’ perception. That technology was a way to speak art was seeded in digital photography. I quite literally grew up with digital cameras, my first being quite clunky and getting better as my skills did. I am intimately related to the digital and its fast feedback loops. To see immediately what my choices meant for the image I took. This closed a powerful conceptual loop in learning photography, and only now as I’m writing this do I realize that it closed a loop in my very soul. Art as a way for everything to celebrate itself through humanity. I strive to celebrate what I see.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I take photographs, create videos, do some acting, drawing and painting and writing, fiction and non-fiction. My work seems to have this balance, between warning of dangers and celebrating possibilities. I’m often on the scent of power dynamics in society with my writing. While my visual art focuses more on celebrating the inherent beauty of this universe we are made of and live in. My hope is that my work will inspire an active pause in your worldview and flip you on your head! My writing endeavors to help you wake up to the politics of technology and the choices available to you as a human, tool-user, tool-maker. My photography and visual art strives to have myself and the viewer remember something said well in the Lotus Blossom Sutra: “the normal person has turned their wisdom into consciousness, and so the wonderful has become mundane. The enlightened person can turn their consciousness back into wisdom, so the mundane becomes wonderful.” I feel strongly that my art is my own play and I let it surprise me. I am thankful for my photographic eye for it taking me to beautiful places and helping me soak them in to return to as mediations later! I hope to inspire you to surprise yourself!

How can artists connect with other artists?
I might not be the best source for this answer! I find it difficult to balance the solitary pursuit of actually ‘making the thing’ with the social aspect of connecting to others to share it! I would say the best advice I try to always give myself is just be open for connection and spend some time going to local events and let the world figure out how to connect you with the right people. I have made great connections that just sort of appeared out of network connections. If you forward new people you meet over to your wider network, your network will do the same for you. Energy wants to move around once it gets going!

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I try to keep www.johnhanacek.net updated with most of my work for viewing. Following on Twitter and Instagram are my most-used channels to post for updates. To get prints go to www.jhphoto.space. Getting prints of your favorite pieces on PhotoScape is the best way to support me. And use my site contact or social media to hit me up if there’s a piece you want to get a print of that is not yet up on jhphoto. space! 

Contact Info:

• Website: johnhanacek.net
• Phone: email and ask
• Email: johnhanacek@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liamchiefsome/?hl=en
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnhanacek
• Other: https://www.jhphoto.space/

Image Credit:
John Hanacek

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