Matthew Hance’s current body of work is focused on the concept of memory. The ability to store and recall information is one of the most amazing capacities of higher organisms. Our memories encapsulate our sense of personal and cultural identity, and the meaning of our lives. Involuntary memory is not immediate memory, but something that seeps in when you’re not aware. Hence, the experience of an image is different each time, which ultimately offers fresh perspectives on something so familiar as a portrait. One way Hance achieves this in his work is by organizing a painting around unpredictable changes in composition, rhythm, and weight. Other themes that he explores are auras, dynamism, cognitive psychology, anthropomorphism, gender identity, and anthroposcopy, which is defined as the act of determining character or personal characteristics from the form or features of the body, especially the face.