Hannah Jordan investigates the female nude as it relates to space and the art historical context of figure painting. Her work operates in response to questions of the efficacy of figure painting as a woman. Hannah works primarily in acrylic on un-stretched yet primed canvas, paying close attention to the textile qualities of the canvas. She views unstretched canvas as a medium, cutting it to create layered collages. In addition to her collage-paintings, Hannah also incorporates various printmaking techniques into her practice, such as lithography, screen print, and relief. Driven by gestural mark-making, Hannah uses an intuitive process in which she responds to her own shapes, often through the creation of dura-lar stencils and transparencies. Compositionally, she explores spatial relationships by creating psychological landscapes that allow for the fusion of figure and ground. Hannah often draws from historical representations of women and regurgitates them through a feminist lens, thus challenging the depiction of the female nude within the western art historical canon. She is most notably interested in dismantling the ideal women as described by the three graces motif through multiplicity. The notion of multiplicity is achieved through the use of hand-cut stencils and printmaking techniques. Her practice also incorporates elements of women’s work, such as ironing and pattern-making, to celebrate aspects of femininity. As an artist, she finds importance in translating notions of figure painting and beauty ideals into the contemporary.
Hannah Jordan is an artist from Cleveland, Ohio, who works primarily in painting and printmaking. Her work has been shown at various galleries in Columbus, Ohio, such as Urban Arts Space and Wild Goose Creative. Hannah received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Ohio State University in the spring of 2021.