Hanna Washburn
hannawashburn.com
hannawashburn.com
Here For You, recycled clothing and textiles, thread, batting, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, wooden table from my childhood home, 16" x 18" x 32", 2020
Re-recovered, recycled clothing and textiles, thread, batting, acrylic paint, my childhood doll bed, 14" x 18" x 18", 2019
Lady Slipper, recycled clothing and textiles, thread, batting, steel, 24" x 13" x 50", 2020
Soft Window, recycled clothing and textiles, thread, batting, 18" x 24" 5", 2020
Spring Fever, recycled clothing and textiles, thread, batting, acrylic paint, wooden lattice, 18 x 22" x 6", 2020
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 often employ items from my childhood home as structural armatures. I sew by hand and work intuitively, allowing the forms to grow organically into complex aggregates of color, pattern, and texture. This time-intensive, laborious process is homage to the history of women laboring in the home, and I honor my materials through close attention. I know my materials from their previous lives and functions, and this memory and intimacy dictates my visual language. As I work, the modesty and reserve that characterized my New England upbringing is transformed into something bodily and unruly.
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. Some works have the structure of an armature, while other forms droop under the influence of gravity. The lumpy sculptural forms reference anatomy both celebrated and feared: rounded breasts, bulging stomachs, threatening tumors. The soft colors and floral patterns indicate an ostensible femininity, and embody an aesthetic associated with the home. The voluptuous figures may seem distorted or unsettling, but this is undercut by their apparent sweetness, the surfaces acting as a kind of camouflage for the forms beneath. Some works have swaths of paint covering the clothing, adding another layer of composition to the quilt-like surface. These mismatched bodily forms are at once modest, maternal, sexual, and grotesque, creating a patchwork of associations and expectations of the female form.
I understand bodies to be expansive and shifting, and the surrogate bodies I create are in flux. The variety of forms, sizes, and methods of installation indicate they cannot be easily summarized, marginalized, or contained. The anthropomorphic figures animate the often-ignored materials of quotidian domestic space, taking on bodies that are many things at once. The undulating forms and application of paint suggest they are growing and changing, adding layers and extending into space. They are making a space for themselves, demanding room to breathe.
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. Some works have the structure of an armature, while other forms droop under the influence of gravity. The lumpy sculptural forms reference anatomy both celebrated and feared: rounded breasts, bulging stomachs, threatening tumors. The soft colors and floral patterns indicate an ostensible femininity, and embody an aesthetic associated with the home. The voluptuous figures may seem distorted or unsettling, but this is undercut by their apparent sweetness, the surfaces acting as a kind of camouflage for the forms beneath. Some works have swaths of paint covering the clothing, adding another layer of composition to the quilt-like surface. These mismatched bodily forms are at once modest, maternal, sexual, and grotesque, creating a patchwork of associations and expectations of the female form.
I understand bodies to be expansive and shifting, and the surrogate bodies I create are in flux. The variety of forms, sizes, and methods of installation indicate they cannot be easily summarized, marginalized, or contained. The anthropomorphic figures animate the often-ignored materials of quotidian domestic space, taking on bodies that are many things at once. The undulating forms and application of paint suggest they are growing and changing, adding layers and extending into space. They are making a space for themselves, demanding room to breathe.