EJ Hauser is a painter who lives and works in Brooklyn and Ulster County NY, and is represented by Derek Eller Gallery in New York and Philipp Haverkampf Gallery in Berlin.
EJ’s paintings are both graphic and open to interpretation, teetering between iconography and something familiar but abstract. This imagery shifts between omnivorous references both ancient and current, her paintings are mysterious talisman, employing buzzing pallets and marks that dance. Stuttering lines form a visual code like musical notes, which coalesce with atmospheric layers to create ineffable messages.
EJ’s source library includes potent power objects, which are cross-pollinated with formal qualities and care found in domestic craftwork, like rugs, fabrics, wallpapers, and mosaics, as well as digital visual characteristics, which she interprets through drawing and then transliterates onto canvas. Each piece is composed of multiple layers of color. For EJ, the high vibration of color connects directly to the energy and aliveness of her nature-based subject matter. Barn Spirits and Garden Dwellers are titles of recent series that aspire towards optimistic poeisis.
EJ had her second solo show with Derek Eller Gallery, Voyagers, in April, 2021. In 2020, she had her first solo exhibition, Forest Dwellers, with Philipp Haverkampf in Berlin, Germany. Her paintings and drawings have been shown in numerous group exhibitions in New York, including Cheim & Read, Sperone Westwater, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Regina Rex, The Journal Gallery, and Sargent’s Daughter’s, and recently at The Pit in LA.
EJ’s work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Frieze, BOMB magazine and Turps Banana among others. In 2021, EJ’s work appeared on the cover of The Brooklyn Rail, as part of her interview with publisher Phong Bui.