Artist Statement | My work is constructed from clothing, furniture, 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 dictate my visual language.

 The resulting sculptures look and behave like bodies or body parts: gradually sagging towards the floor in some places, gesturing with animated buoyancy in others. The soft colors and modest patterns indicate an ostensible femininity and embody an aesthetic associated with the home. The voluptuous figures may seem distorted or unsettling, but this impression is undercut by their apparent sweetness, the surfaces acting as a kind of camouflage for the forms beneath. These mismatched bodily forms are at once modest, maternal, sexual, and grotesque, creating a patchwork of associations and expectations of the female form.

These artworks were created in my home studio during the pandemic. I find it difficult to define new work that emerges in response to significant life changes, so I allow myself to feel my feelings as they are happening. For me, it takes a period of reflection to identify what's going on and the reason for certain visual shifts. For this reason, my work is not planned in advance: the process of making my sculptures is largely improvisational, and I respond to the forms as they emerge. I spend a lot of time with my materials, thinking about their history. The anthropomorphic figures animate the often-ignored materials of quotidian domestic space, taking on bodily forms that are many things at once. This work is irrevocably tied to this current moment, a messy and intuitive expression of myself at home.

Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in the Hudson Valley. She holds a BA in Fine Art and English from Kenyon College and an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts. She has exhibited at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Rice University, and the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute. Hanna has been artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Colony, Monson Arts, and the Textile Arts Center.