Hello, I’m Hanna.

Artist. Experimenter. Terrible at staying in a box.

I’ve always been creative. As a kid I loved drawing, dancing and disappearing into my imagination. Then life happened and, like a lot of us, I got busy doing all the things I thought I was supposed to do.

I found my way back to art after my mum died from cancer.

I had three young children, a very noisy head and desperately needed somewhere to disappear for a while. Drawing gave me that place. For a few hours, everything else went quiet.

What started as an escape slowly became something much bigger.                                                                                                                                     

I studied with Milan Art Institute, developed my technical skills and, somewhere along the way, realised that becoming a better artist didn't mean becoming somebody else's version of one.

Now I paint the way I paint.

My work is expressive and representational, but the way I make it is actually pretty methodical. I usually begin with an idea and a reference, and I work slowly. I build texture into the surface, develop the image carefully and spend a lot of time rendering. I like detail. I like solving problems. I like knowing where I'm going.

 The freedom isn't in painting without a plan. It's in knowing the rules, learning the skills and still making my own decisions. It's choosing the subject because I want to paint it. Using the materials I want to use. Changing something because it doesn't feel like me. Adding texture, marks, scribbles, scratches, drips or words when they belong - not because I'm trying to look spontaneous. Some paintings are louder.

 Some are quieter. Some are animals, birds or figures. I don't need every painting to say the same thing, because the common thread is me.

Unfenced. Untamed. Free.

For me, that isn't chaos or rebellion for the sake of it. It's self-expression. It's questioning the things I've accepted as true, deciding what still belongs to me and giving myself the freedom to choose differently.

Art stretches me, tests me and keeps teaching me about myself. I make good paintings. I make bad paintings. Both matter. One gives me something I'm proud of; the other gives me a problem to solve.

 I get one life. I will keep learning and growing, but I will only ever make art as me.

 Pretty good job, really.