Chris Hanna

 Last year when I was visiting Mexico City I took the train down to one of my favorite places: San Angel. It used to be a rural farming town near the capital, but as Mexico City grew it absorbed many of these places. One of the things I love though is that it kept a lot of its historic character like the cobblestone streets, plazas, and churches. This time there was a new place on my itinerary, the former convent of the Discalced Carmelites. (Discalced means without shoes and the Carmelites are a mendicant order that traces back to Mt. Carmel in Israel.) It was founded in 1615 and became a museum in 1929. After Mexican independence from Spain, many monasteries became state property or lost state funding. This followed the separation of church and state in the new country.     From the street I could see the colorful domes of the sanctuary. Each was made with tiles of a different color and ornamented with caring detail. I decided to paint them live as people poured out of ...

If you had asked me a couple years ago whether the modern art movement ruined art or not, I would've said yes. I've read many articles and watched many videos saying in the last 100 years we've seen the downfall of beauty thanks to things like brutalism. And then SUDDENLY, my mind changed. I started to become more curious about modern art movements thanks to music like vaporwave. It's a genre that has this retro-futurism feel to it. I remember two years ago I started going to the mall with my pseudo-retro music on to appreciate the skylights and shiny floors. So when I passed by this unassuming office building I pulled over and got out my camera. I loved the dramatic shadows that the geometric shapes were making on this cloudy day. This was part of a square cutout in the building, centered around this staircase. You can walk underneath the second floor and sit on benches. To me the great thing about art is highlighting the beauty in ordinary things like this. These kind...

Click here to purchase - $142 - 7" x 6.5" - Gouache on Paper On a rainy day in January, I walked around these hills hugging the Tokyo Bay. Cold, wet, and a little lost I took out my camera to save this scene. The landscape faded into an endless fog. The nearly frozen rain continued its gentle patter. The mist reached through the trees and the valleys. I had to pause.