About

I am an observational painter, I paint from life. Most often I paint landscapes and could be called a Plein Air painter, but that term has become a bit limiting. I start each painting on location and I try to approach each one with a fresh and open point of view. Most of each painting is finished on the spot, but they are frequently reworked and adjusted in my studio. I try to make my paintings more than just a copy of a place but a narrative or documentary about a setting; creating a story and a feeling about a place. 

The past forty years I have been concentrating on urban, suburban, and rural landscape painting. I am fascinated with commonplace neighborhoods and the subtle strangeness they can evoke.  Architecture, cars, street signs, etc. interact with the natural environment creating interesting spaces. Light and shadow, time and seasons, all combine to create a unique moment and setting.  I try to balance these narrative and representational issues with a direct and painterly approach. 

Traditionally picturesque motifs don’t interest me; I look for locations that are more local and personal. I’ll walk about my neighborhood and try to let my mind wander. It will be in these solitary moods when I see these normal places in a fresh and innocent way.  When I am in such a mood; the light cascades across a lawn, and the shape of a shadow, or the color reflecting on a mailbox will fascinate me. It’s these moments I try to capture in my paintings.

For the past few years I have been surrounding my painting with wide decorative frames. They are intended to isolate and glorify these normal places and to show that a normal place can have aspects of the sublime. The decorative motifs surrounding these normal places, hopefully creating a conflict that has one looking at these places in a fresh and new way.

I admire the figurative painting tradition that runs from the Renaissance through the Post Impressionist and on to modern times.  There has been a revitalization of that tradition in the past 40 years. Edward Hopper and the way he personalized the world around him is a constant source of inspiration. The Bay area painters and Richard Diebenkorn combined realism with modernist sensibilities. Fairfield Porter is seen as a grandfather of what has become New Realism . Neil Welliver, Janet Fish, George Nick and too many others to mention have continued this  movement. A possible definition could be an artist that is working in a realistic manner but is aware of contemporary art and is responding to it in one way or another. I try to do that and be true to my own ideas and vision.

                        George Hancin

Faculty Specialties:  Adult classes - Painting, Drawing, Figure,  Portrait, Landscape

BFA Kent State University, Diploma and 5th Year Degree Boston Museum School, MFA Yale School of Art

Ohio in the 50s and 60s was a great place to grow up. Drawing was a big part of my youth; from cartooning to making comic books. I completed an Art Education degree at Kent State University in the 70s. There I discovered my love of painting and the Arts in general. In the early 80s I continued studying painting and printmaking at the Boston Museum School. Later in that decade I earned a Masters at Yale School of Art. It was a time of intense work, meeting famous artists, and many trips to New York galleries and museums. Throughout the 90s I was a member of the Bromfield Gallery and had several solo shows there. I was in group shows at Georgia Tech University and in three New York Galleries. My paintings were reviewed in The Boston Globe, Art NewEngland, and included in corporate collections. From 1994 to 2018 I was a high school art teacher. Over those years I taught Advanced Placement Art and ceramics, organized art exhibits and helped at Art All State, built sets for play productions and helped with drama festivals. It was a very enjoyable and fulfilling career; working with hundreds of talented, energetic teens was a great experience.  During that time I was in group shows at ArtsWorcester, the Sprinkler Factory, and the Montserrat Art College Gallery.  Now I am  retired and happily putting my full attention into painting.

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