Belle Hahn Presents ‘TWIN HEARTS’ at Art&Soul in the Santa Barbara Funk Zone

Artist, philanthropist, and prominent Santa Barbara community member Belle Hahn’s art exhibition TWIN HEARTS is currently being featured at Art&Soul, an art gallery located in the heart of Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. The art gallery is dedicated to supporting the mission of the Hahn’s Twin Hearts Foundation, a nonprofit entity cofounded by Hahn and her sister, Lily Hahn Shining, and dedicated to the twin pillars of the “soul and soil,” supporting both arts and regenerative agriculture.

Hahn grew up in an artistic household; her father, Stephen Hahn, was a renowned art dealer. Spending her childhood in New York City, cultural hotspots like The Met and Central Park sparked her love for the arts and nature. The family then moved to Montecito when Hahn was 7.

Hahn took to art therapy, after suffering from an early childhood trauma, finding that creating was essential to her healing journey. During her time at Sarah Lawrence, Hahn studied art under German painter and teacher Ursula Schneider, and she fell in love with painting animals, nature, and fashion.

“I was always connected to nature and the arts, whether it was fashion or color, just expression,” Hahn said.

Schiender encouraged Hahn to pursue her passion for painting abroad in Florence, Italy. However, after her father got sick, Hahn moved back home to Santa Barbara, where she settled down and started her family. The brushes were put away, paintings put under the bed, and Hahn became a staple in the community.

Hahn had an awakening of sorts after watching the nature documentary Fantastic Fungi. She was drawn to the film’s central themes: nature and connection. This inspired Hahn to inspire that level of natural consciousness and connection in her circle.

“I’ve sort of been known as the face of the community, ‘the bell of the ball’ at these galas, and a socialite, and all of these things that I was getting really, quite frankly, bored of that title,” Hahn said. “I knew that there was so much more that needed to come out.”

Hahn became dedicated to promoting and protecting the earth, using her prominence and privilege in the community to spread awareness. On this journey, Hahn was able to reconnect with her inner child, returning to her past trauma and how nature helped her preserve and cope. “This remembrance of my connection with the earth and with my little childhood self that would go talk to the flowers or listen to what the trees had to say…. Whenever I was leaving my body, like disassociating with the abuse, the earth brought me back in.”

Through her connections, Hahn became more involved in her earth journey, becoming a philanthropic contributor and producer of nature documentaries Common Ground and Feeding Tomorrow. She befriended American chef and activist Alice Waters, getting involved in the regeneration and agriculture spheres.

“This is all connected to the art,” Hahn expressed. “As I was going along my earth journey and getting more and more connected, I started to see myself as more of a healer, in terms of reconnecting these strands of people or how I was being reconnected to the earth.”

While taking a Pranic Healing class to become certified as a Pranic Healer, Hahn was introduced to the Twin Hearts meditation. This is what sparked Hahn’s return to the art world.

“From the first second I started to do this meditation, I started to see these huge paintings. I started to see everything,” she said.

Under Creative Visions, a nonprofit supporting creative activists, Hahn and her sister started the Twin Hearts Foundation, with the goal of regeneration through art and nature. “Because not only are we twin hearts, Lily and I, we believe that the twin hearts are the soil and the soul,” Hahn explained. “That’s what my entire visions and the paintings are really about.”

“We can regenerate everything. We can regenerate our bodies, heal our soils, our guts. We can also heal our earth, but it takes the awakening of where we haven’t been.”

Hahn describes the TWIN HEARTS art show as “the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done,” due to the personable and emotional nature of her work. “It was like my insides were being shown. My visions and also my gut instincts about the world and the planet were being shared without any words.”

Hahn’s art is driven by her visions and her spirit. “I really just trusted the paintbrush and trusted spirit and trusted the colors that were coming onto my brush. It was not about perfectionism; it was all about expression and allowing the space for it to come out.”

She clarified that her artwork was not intended to be an art show at first. “I was doing it because these visions had to be born. Then it became an art show.”

Hahn’s paintings in the gallery focus on her journey of connection with the natural world, inspiring others to follow similar paths. One piece in particular, titled “The Lion Queen,” was inspired by Hahn’s work in the regenerative food movement and her dedication to sparking change from a variety of communities.

“If we could honor our community, from Santa Barbara all the way to Africa, to regenerate community by community and support this form of regenerative agriculture, honoring the land … this lion was like my fierce commitment.”

Hahn touched on the importance of involvement, and how members of the Santa Barbara community can use their privilege to help spread awareness and support. “The bottom line is, our world is in a lot of pain. And if there’s something we can do about it while we’re living in the beautiful bubble of Montecito, I can’t not do it.”

She continued, “Twin Hearts is just asking people to join us for the collective, because we all need to care…. However I can spread the message, whether it’s art, music, theater, or just digging a hole in the ground and planting a seed, I am all in. The time is now.”

The TWIN HEARTS show includes original pieces by Hahn, along with work by Stewart Shining, Michael Haber, Pedro De La Cruz, David Downton, Emmanuelle Pickett, Lucia Kiel, Kim Reierson, Willa Kveta, and Lillian Hahn Shining (Hahn’s sister). Hahn Shining also serves as the curator for the exhibition.

The TWIN HEARTS exhibition runs until September 15, and will participate in the 1st Thursday show on September 5 from 5-8 p.m. The show plans to include children’s art in the last couple of weeks of its run.

Art&Soul is located at 116 Santa Barbara Street. For more information about the show and Twin Hearts, visit the gallery’s website.