Halifax artist’s childhood inspires his work 

Paul Hannon’s paintings range from local scenes to dystopian-like settings, inspired by moments from his childhood, he told The Signal in an interview at his home in Halifax.  

Hannon, who is originally from the United States, created a painting titled Tastee-Freez, named after the American soft-serve ice cream franchise. The piece was inspired by the time his family owned a Tastee-Freez when he was eleven years old. 

“It was this funny thing that our family did,” he said.

“We had no experience in the restaurant business before or after that, but somehow we got into owning a Tastee-Freez in the summers.” 

The painting depicts a surreal moment of his family beaming down from the sky in bathing suits. 

“I just figured, well, I don’t know how these people got there in their bathing suits at night, but they must have beamed in,” he said. “So, I played around with ideas of beaming lights coming down.” 

Each of Hannon’s quirky paintings is filled with nostalgic inspiration. Hannon says he sketches each of his paintings beforehand. 

The painting pictured above on the left is from the film Easy Rider, which Hannon has happy memories of from his childhood. 

“When I was a kid, I painted this on my basement wall, but I didn’t finish before my family moved from that home, so I finished it here,” said Hannon. 

The walls of Hannon’s studio are covered in photo clippings to draw from for his paintings. 

He brought out several image cutouts representing people from his life that he plans to include in his artwork.