Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present House & Ghosts, the debut solo exhibition of Angela Fang Zirbes. Set within the backdrop of an old rural house, ghosts and their haunted objects appear within carefully decorated striped and wood paneled interiors. Executed in a monochromatic palette, the paintings are reminiscent of an old aging photograph, like calling upon a long forgotten memory. Inspired by common decor typically found within old country homes, faux wooden frames encase relics and imagined memories of a life once lived, serving as memories of the ghosts past 'in life'. These domestic depictions illustrate the restrictions of life through the use of traditional compositions, smaller scale imagery, and rigid posture.
By contrast, the second group of works depict ghosts and their haunted objects appearing within uncanny interiors with unusual cropping and oversized subjects. Here the figures appear weightless and soft, untethered to the restrictions of a life once lived. Isolation serves as the ghostly figure's ultimate freedom. Free of societal expectations, they do not acknowledge the viewer, uninterested as they no longer abide by the rules of the living – instead ruminating on past memories and events. The paintings serve as a representation of how the apparitions feel larger in death than in the life they lived when ‘in frame’. While free, the ghosts are ultimately confined to what they knew and experienced in their previous life, trapped inside the very house they haunt.
This body of work reflects the isolating experience of navigating an identity rooted in liminality as a biracial person -- caught between realities, both real and imagined. The ghosts in these works echo this in-between state, neither fully belonging to the world they haunt or the one they left behind. These paintings explore the tension between belonging and estrangement, presenting a haunted landscape that is both personal and political, reckoning with the myths of American identity and the uncertain realities that lurk beneath.
