Hanna Washburn is a sculptor focused on evoking memory via recycled materials from their own life resulting in abstracted forms that enlist nostalgia in their process thus dictating the materials new form.
"My work is constructed from recycled textiles, clothing, household items, and other materials that have former utilities and associations. I source these supplies from my own life, and the lives of my friends and family, to build compound sculptural forms. I sew by hand and work intuitively, allowing the forms to grow organically into complex aggregates of color, pattern, and texture. I know my materials from their previous lives and functions, and this memory and intimacy dictates my visual language. The resulting sculptures look and behave like bodies or body parts: they droop, gesture, and hold space. The voluptuous figures may seem distorted or unsettling, but this is undercut by their apparent sweetness, the pastel and floral surfaces acting as a kind of camouflage for the forms beneath. These mismatched, anthropomorphic figures are at once modest, maternal, and seductive, creating a patchwork of associations and expectations of the female form. The undulating silhouettes suggest these bodily forms are growing and changing, adding layers and extending into space. They are making a space for themselves, demanding room to breathe."
Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in Beacon, NY. She received her MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in 2018, and her BA in Fine Art and English Literature from Kenyon College in 2014. In 2019, Washburn received an Artist Grant provided by the United Breast Cancer Foundation and Chashama. In 2020, Washburn presented her solo show, Homebody, at the James Library and Center for the Arts in Norwell, MA. In 2021, Washburn co-curated a project entitled Blessed Bodies at SPRING/BREAK Art Fair in New York City. Washburn has exhibited with Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York, NY), The Affordable Art Fair (New York, NY), Rice University (Houston, TX), Chashama (New York, NY), SPRING/BREAK Art Fair (New York, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY) and the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute (Utica, NY). She has held residences at Monson Arts (2020), Vermont Studio Center (2019), the Society of Arts + Crafts in Boston (2019), the Textile Arts Center (2018), and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Colony (2018).
Featured Work
