Selected Reviews and Exhibition Descriptions

2007/2008 “Cityscapes” “Scoprendo la Città”

After recent visits to London, Rome and Venice, Hannah has absorbed these cities and has reflected these experiences in her work. The layers of history, visible in each city, and the ever developing and changing urban landscape are the subject of these carefully constructed mixed media paintings.

In the same way that the cities themselves have been shaped by different styles of architecture, historical events, political and social changes, the artist builds up the surface of the paintings combining a variety of mediums and application methods, thereby creating meaning through each of the layers.

Hannah juxtaposes contemporary and traditional painting methods with historical and modern subjects. Using her own photographs taken in these places, she transfers them to the surface of the paintings where they become lost under the layers of paint, varnishes and wax, encasing the artist’s memory of these places.
The calm horizon line and elements of nature which characterized the artist’s last series become blocked out by the rhythmical and geometrical shapes of the city.

The artist often refers to music and poetry in her work. She plays with the arrangement of tempo and mood created by the contrasting colours and linear forms.

“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets….every segment marked in turn with scratches and indentations…”
(Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities)

2006 “Lines in Nature” Marlborough Open Studios, Wiltshire

Hannah’s series “Lines in nature” continues to challenge the vision of the landscape developing her work towards essential colours and pure lines. She takes elements from the natural world that she has witnessed on her travels in Australia, New Zealand and Italy and explores texture and abstract forms assembling them in a new reality.

The artist looks at lines and patterns created by nature: cobwebs, leaves, petals, trees, contours of the landscape, stones, and lines on the body. Each line individually created, representing the passage of time, growth and the transience of our journey through life.

Hannah not only represents the visual in her work but also refers to literature and music which have also inspired her. This exhibition has mainly been influenced by the writings of Virginia Woolf many of the works refer to The Waves (Hogarth Press1931).

2005 "Venice Series - Where paths meet” Marlborough Open Studios, Wiltshire. Also shown at L’Istituto Dante Alighieri, Padova

Venice is the stimulus for this series, where Hannah has lived and worked for different periods of time since her first visit in 2000.

The young painter-photographer was fascinated above all by the journey into Venice on the train, the sensation of being completely surrounded by the lagoon, the calm, the effects of the light on the water, the reflections, the shadows, the wooden poles “le briccole” which pierce the stillness of the water, the mist that encircles the city like a halo uniting the lagoon and the sky.

In the exhibited works the artist studies silhouettes “profiles of Venice”, she explores both traditional and known vistas comparing them to the “other Venice”, the industrial area and the port.

Hannah explores a range of media to express the texture, colour and abstract forms inspired by her surroundings. She not only represents “how” she sees the city, but also how she “lives” Venice, fixing objects of everyday life to the canvases.

Venice has a particular historical connection with Hannah. Her great grandfather, artist Louis Cockrell visited Venice and funnily enough also Padua (where Hannah currently has her studio), 100 years ago (1904). He not only painted, but recently discovered photographs recall places familiar to Hannah today. From here evolved her desire to retrace her great grandfather’s footsteps.

Following the antique photographs Hannah was able to discover how a city that appears almost untouched in history, has changed in the last one hundred years.

2004 “A Journey along the Horizon” Marlborough Open Studios, Wiltshire

Horizon and travel characterize this phase of the painter-photographer, she uses a variety of media: painting, photography, print and collage creating visual poems which explore texture, colour and abstract forms inspired by her travels in Australia, New Zealand, England and Italy. The artist draws on her inspirations and sensations that she experienced on her travels and assembles them in a new reality in order to document her journey in these places.

Photography is at the base of her creative process like a travel diary, in many cases it is the preparatory phase for her paintings. Hannah shows a significant aesthetic in her art: she challenges the traditional vision of a landscape focusing on the horizon;

“an illusionary line where earth and sky seem to meet, an empty space where one can reflect and transfer ones thoughts”

2003 “Horizon” Villa Corner, Monselice, Italy

Hannah explores the horizon. “Line where earth and sky seem to meet”

The artist looks at the horizon from a new point of view, she extends the space vertically showing a clear partiality for the spirituality of the ascending line that tends irresistibly to the infinite, witnessed also by the lack of imposing limits to the space, few of the works are enclosed in frames, expressing a freedom of thought.

2003 “Time Past and Time Present” Villa Corner, Monselice, Italy

Time Past and Time Present explores the idea of preserving memories and how we remember and recall our experiences. Hannah has always kept a visual diary which contains symbols that remind her of her travels; found objects, tickets, photos, letters etc. An installation of her diaries was shown at the “Bookworks Exhibition” Trowbridge, Wiltshire (1998)

The canvases continue this idea of conservation. They are covered in newspaper articles, glued and then painted over with oil paint creating an undulated surface. These works no longer express the artist’s personal experience but they are the diaries of the world, in particular they refer to the war in Iraq. The writing is only just visible, almost forgotten, camouflaged by the dark layer of oil paint. In some of the works a small break of contrasting colour reflects the past memories and represents an idea of hope. The rope symbolizes the continuation of time.

The artist does not want to express her own opinion on the newspaper articles but she wishes to communicate the idea that these articles have been written by journalists who risk their lives to report this “news” which is continually changing;

One day it is “news” the next day it is “history”