For four decades as a painter and constructivist, Hathorn’s work underscores a long- standing interest in literature and in particular relations between painting and poetry. Chronologically and stylistically diverse sources of art historical correspondence have served as important catalysts in his paintings which remain firmly grounded in abstraction and are informed by the duality of eastern and western traditions as well as the nearly three decades that he has periodically taught in England, France, and Italy. His work is often thematically categorized by titles including, Correspondences, Migratory Poems, The Baudelaire Sketches, On Rilke, Poems to Copernicus, The Grammar of Water, and Book of Hours among others.
The artist has described his studio practice as “addressing the intimacy of painting through oblique reference to internal and external experience, and through relational correspondences with writers and artists whose work continues to sustain me. The touch sensibility in the making and the physical palpability of materials I believe to be inseparable from the feeling and meaning of my painting.”
