Painter Hasani Sahlehe Tells Us How Alice Coltrane Inspired His Show at CANADA

Earlier this year at Frieze New York, the “Focus” section of the fair eclipsed the countless other booths, with a solo presentation by Hasani Sahlehe being the most memorable part. The overgrown chunks of fluorescent gloss interlock over a matte base, forming wonky, bright, sonorous grids that reference decades of tactile abstraction but tell an entirely new story. A few weeks ago, the Atlanta-based artist announced that he would be joining the roster at CANADA, kicking off their fall programing with a solo exhibition titled Song Ideas. “CANADA is a color gallery,” the artist told me last night as we stepped out from the jam-packed reception on Lispenard street to catch up over a cigarette. “Even the artists who don’t work with paintings handle color really in interesting ways.” Out on the cobbled sidewalk, Sahlehe told me about the strangest object that’s gotten stuck in one of his paintings, his enduring love of Alice Coltrane, and how he keeps calm and collected during art week mania.

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SANDSTROM: My first question is, do you feel famous?

HASANI SAHLEHE: I must admit, yeah, a little bit.

SANDSTROM: What’s it like to have everyone show up for you tonight?

SAHLEHE: It’s nice. But you know what? A lot of the people that showed up I already knew. Do famous people even have friends? A lot of my friends came.

SANDSTROM: That’s sweet. The first thing I want to talk about is your older works. They were a lot more nebulous, they had floating objects. Can we talk about the transition into this new work?

SAHLEHE: Which ones are you talking about?

SANDSTROM: The older ones where there were figures darting around and shapes on those–

SAHLEHE: Yo.

ATTENDEE 1: Yeah. Yo, man. Did your thing.

SAHLEHE: Thank you.

ATTENDEE 2: How much longer are you going to be in New York?

SAHLEHE: Another week.

ATTENDEE 2: I’ll stop by and see you while you’re around.

SAHLEHE: Yeah. Next week, now that I’m done, I could do whatever.

ATTENDEE 2: Cool. Congrats, man.

SANDSTROM: You know the ones where there were objects floating around?

SAHLEHE: Which ones are those? Oh, the more celestial–

SANDSTROM: Yeah. 

SAHLEHE: Yeah, that’s a great connection. Honestly, these paintings are the same. The ideas are the same, they just are being expressed differently. The transition came from those pieces being more celestial in terms of stars and suns. To me, those are like an abstracted solar system, or something like that.

SANDSTROM: But the new ones are sort of celestial in their own way, right?

SAHLEHE: Yeah, they have that presence. But the transition came in that I was thinking more about design. With the celestial pieces, I was thinking about us existing in this world, and then with these, I’m thinking about human contribution to the world.

SANDSTROM: Right, that architecture/built environment throughline from your previous show. 

SAHLEHE: Yeah, exactly.

SANDSTROM: When I was looking at them, I was like, “How the fuck does this guy pour the paint?” How are you pouring onto canvases that large? Your works have scaled up so much. 

SAHLEHE: I made half of the work in Sadie Laska’s studio in Long Island City. And then the other half I made in CANADA’s main gallery.

SANDSTROM: On the floor in the gallery?

SAHLEHE: On the floor, on sawhorses.

SANDSTROM: Cool.

SAHLEHE: I used to work on the floor, but I would have a much shorter career if I kept doing that.

SANDSTROM: Why? Because you’d ruin the floors?

SAHLEHE: No, I’d ruin my back. So the paintings lay down flat on their back, and then I’ll pour the gel medium. And I use a brush to spread it.

SANDSTROM: That must be a huge brush.

SAHLEHE: Nah. The thing is, the nature of the material allows it to level out, which is what attracts me to it. It looks like giant squeegee brush strokes, but what’s really happening is the material itself is transforming to create this solid block. I think that’s an aspect of the material that is interesting to me. That makes acrylic intrinsic to the work, as opposed to oil or whatever.

SANDSTROM: Is it that gel that’s giving it that gloss or that glaze?

SAHLEHE: Yeah, it’s the gel that’s mixed in that gives it that extra gloss, and then it contrasts with the airbrushed acrylic that’s soaked into the raw canvas.

SANDSTROM: Do the air bubbles ever stress you out?

SAHLEHE: [Laughs] Nah, never.

SANDSTROM: They look almost intentionally placed at times. 

SAHLEHE: Nah, there’s no way. That just happens naturally, but I think it makes kids, and honestly it makes everybody else really happy. I think it tempts everybody else.

SANDSTROM: Yeah, it’s tactile and playful.

SAHLEHE: Yeah, exactly. But honestly, I look up to a lot of light and space artists, you know the well-known ones, of course.

SANDSTROM: Like who?

SAHLEHE: Like James Turrell or Fred Eversley, Helen Pashgian, you name it. But their works are so seductive in the way that they’re so sleek and polished. John McCracken is another one. Deep down inside, I enjoy that work. Maybe these are my renditions of that type of work, but it’s like my sloppy rendition. My work has bubbles in them. My work has flies that get caught in them or they are–

SANDSTROM: Are there flies on those canvases in there?

SAHLEHE: Yeah, there are flies in there. There’s somebody’s hair from the studio in there.

SANDSTROM: What’s the weirdest thing that’s got stuck in one of them?

SAHLEHE: I think there was a Q-tip in something that I did in Athens in Tif [Sigfrids’s] space. There are brushes. There’s all kinds of stuff in there. Chunks of paint. But that’s just who I am. I think that attracts people too, because we try to really curate our lives and things just happen. It’s just a painting, but–

SANDSTROM: Shit happens.

SAHLEHE: Yeah, exactly.

SANDSTROM: Let’s talk about the color choices.

SAHLEHE: Yeah. They come from a couple of different places. I’m attracted to color relationships that suggest visible light, but also light in terms of weight. There’s an intuitive part where I try to approach it how I imagine a musician would.

SANDSTROM: Yes.

SAHLEHE: That’s really important for me in terms of the way we arranged the space, because there’s always a mood I want. Not just one painting, but all the work in conversation, like an album or something like that. 

SANDSTROM: Yeah. There is also something very musical about the structure of each work.

SAHLEHE: Yeah, I think so.

SANDSTROM: Do you want to talk about Alice Coltrane and your relationship to jazz and how that’s informed abstraction?

SAHLEHE: Yeah. She’s one of the artists I look up to a lot. While I was making this work, I was listening to this performance on YouTube. It’s this performance she did at an ashram, I believe. If you look it up on YouTube, just type in “Alice Coltrane Yogaville.” This performance was really beautiful, but it’s also very awkward, which is how I see these paintings. A lot of people are drawn to the color in these, but they’re also wobbly, asymmetrical, and sloppy in some ways. And again, that performance is transcendent, but there’s moments where there’s feedback in the microphone. You would just have to see it, but it’s–

SANDSTROM: It’s human error.

SAHLEHE: Exactly. It is not polished at all, and something about that is really beautiful. And there’s also the sonic textures. They’re very spacious and sweet sounds. I think I make sweet paintings too.

SANDSTROM: Yeah. That’s really nice. So you’re represented by CANADA now?

SAHLEHE: Yeah.

SANDSTROM: Congratulations. 

SAHLEHE: Thank you. I feel like they have some of the best and most exciting painters in the world.

SANDSTROM: Well, Katherine Bernhardt reminded me a little of your work, in terms of color arrangements. 

SAHLEHE: Yeah, for sure. CANADA is a color gallery. Even the artists who don’t work with paintings handle color really in interesting ways. We speak the same language.

SANDSTROM: That’s lovely. Do you feel like this will open you up to more opportunities? And what does that look like? 

SAHLEHE: I imagine so. Right now, I’m just thinking about this show. I felt like I made a lot of decisions leading up to this, so I gave myself a break from making any more decisions. I just wanted to present this work.

SANDSTROM: Have you ever tried to make music?

SAHLEHE: [Laughs] I’ve been trying to make music my whole life sporadically. But I feel like I’ll get serious about it soon.

SANDSTROM: Yeah. I know you’re from Atlanta, so what do you feel when you’re up here in the midst of the art week chaos? I know you did that big presentation at Frieze this spring.

SAHLEHE: It’s exciting. I love all of it. I have a different relationship to art fairs. A lot of artists don’t like it, but I came from not knowing anything about art fairs to seasonally working for NADA one winter in Miami. My relationship with this is work. I’ll hang out, but it’s not really a party to me. 

SANDSTROM: Is it overwhelming?

SAHLEHE: No, not at all.

SANDSTROM: That’s cool. How do you stay calm?

SAHLEHE: In life or just this week?

SANDSTROM: I guess this week.

SAHLEHE: Well, the work was done, I guess.

SANDSTROM: Yeah, that’ll do it.