Colorado-based Haley Hasler works in the realm of the painted self-portrait and represents herself as a central point in an endlessly revolving domestic drama. Hasler illustrates the joys, fantasies, theatrics, realities and challenges of being both a devoted mother and an artist in a world that tells women that they can have it all with a flourishing career and parenthood. She has taught at Colorado State University, University of Virginia, Piedmont Virginia Community College, College of Fine Arts (Boston), and at the University of the West Indies as part of the US Fulbright Program.
“I cannot remember a time in my life when painting has felt as urgent to me as the present,” Hasler said. “The email I received letting me know that I had won the 2023 Alexander Rutsch Award arrived at a time in my life when I have been working under some constraint. The Alexander Rutsch Award exhibition at the Pelham Art Center will greatly expand the conversation I am able to have with viewers of my work. That is the artist”™s dream.”
Hasler was selected for the 2023 Alexander Rutsch Award from among eight finalists and approximately 400 total applicants nationwide.
The Alexander Rutsch Award is a juried competition open to U.S.-based artists aged 19 and older. The winner is awarded a cash prize, a solo exhibition and printed catalog at Pelham Art Center. Pelham Art Center is proud to sponsor this competition and award honoring the memory and artistic achievement of artist Alexander Rutsch (1916 ”“ 1997). Rutsch actively supported Pelham Art Center for more than 25 years. After his death, friends, family and supporters established a generous fund to support a biennial, open, juried competition in painting.
Rutsch was born in Vienna, Austria. After studying voice in Austria, he became an opera singer like his parents, but after WWII, Rutsch”™s love for visual expression propelled him to change careers. He was a painter, sculptor, philosopher, musician, singer and poet. His life as a romantic is reflected in his work, as he sought to perfect his soul and humanity. “I paint my dreams,” said Rutsch. “My dreams are color and life. They soar in my head like millions of symphonies. I can never stop building dreams.”
In 1952, after studying under Josef Dorowsky, Josef Hoffmann, and Herbert Boeckl at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, Alexander Rutsch received a scholarship to study in France, where he made contacts and began collaborations with his contemporaries Picasso and Dali, among others. In 1954, he exhibited his work at the Salon Artistique International de Saceux and won first prize for abstract painting, the first of many awards during his prolific career.
The Alexander Rutsch Award and Exhibition program continues Rutsch”™s belief that art transcends all of our humanity. Rutsch saw art as “the stone in the water sending ripples throughout the universe.” His extraordinary work, rich in the celebration of life and our shared human experiences, is included in many public and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Pelham Art Center is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution committed to providing public access to see, study and experience the arts, foster lifelong arts appreciation and thereby strengthen the community.
