Painter Craig Hanna always knew art was his calling. What came as a surprise to the native New Yorker was that his succesful stint as a male model would help launch his artistic career.
Hanna, a graduate of the New York Academy Of Figurative Art, was sketching during his break from doing catwalk shows in 1995 when the president of Bergdorf Goodman, one of the Big Apple's most stylish stores, spotted his work. He was given an opportunity - to put up a solo exhibition inside Bergdorf's own gallery and since then the worlds of fashion and art merged for Hanna.
'The owner of Jigsaw, a trendy clothing shop in London, bought some of my paintings and also flew me to London for an exhibition,' says Hanna. 'The BBC filmed a documentary about the show too.'
Two sold out shows later, Hanna is a successful painter living in London whose figurative 'diptychs' are causing a stir. Galerie Martini is hosting Hanna's first solo show in Hong Kong.
'My work has been heavily Asian-influenced,' Hanna says. 'Art from India, Japan and China inspires me the most, because the harmony and symmetry depicted in Asian art is what human beings need to see.'
In his work, Hanna strives for balance and composition harmony in his paintings. Hanna paints on canvas, timber or copper. With the use of the 'split screen' effect achieved by the two-panel diptychs, his paintings combine figuration and abstraction, representation and association.