Hank Reavis (b. 1997, Seattle, WA) is a painter using airbrush to react to the current hyper-saturated image culture and his anxiety around authorship in this image climate. His compositions draw from internet stock-image databases, and textbook archives, in addition to his own memories and emotional triggers. Through his meticulous airbrush renderings of ostensibly universal and private images, Hank’s paintings make connections between collective and individual memory. Drawn to airbrush for its associations with photo retouching, poster design and its multitudinous manifestations in street culture; Reavis repurposes the medium, using fine mists of paint to create an atmospheric aura punctuated by bold forms, mimicking the slippery nature of meaning and memory.

Hank’s “Little Trees” series reimagines the cheap, tree-shaped disposable air fresheners of the same name; depicting the Little Trees as talismans imbued with  the ability to ward off or attract qualities such as grief, addiction, passion and peace. In portraying the trees as totems or idols, Reavis proposes an alternate method of commodity worship that accounts for a spiritual potentiality in trivial consumer goods. 

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