WALLFLOWER | Hannah Maurice

Hannah (née Melville) is a painter and céramiste who studied at Elam, COFA and St-Quentin-la-Poterie. Born in and raised Devonport, Aotearoa she lived for 16 years in the south of France. Hannah is inspired by the magical traditions of humankind and the flora and fauna of the Earth. Hannah has exhibited in dealer and public galleries in NZ and France.

www.honeymoonseastudio.com

“There is a tension between containment and camouflage, between self-assurance and self-effacement in the notion of the wallflower. Being a “wallflower” is not considered to be a compliment. To have a shy personality, to not seek out the limelight, is seen as negative. I don’t think it is.

There might be a type of melancholy or faded romanticism in some of my works in this WALLFLOWER exhibition, but most are intensely aware, and moreover they are aware of their interconnectedness with nature and the weave and weft of the universe.

My work is concerned with the psychological construction of the female figure within the fabric of earth’s energy, and seen through an animist, feminist and nature focused lens.

The notion of non-verbal communication is obviously ever present in painting, in my work I explore this through giving voices to my imagery. The accessories which adorn my figures and spaces, the plants, animals and especially flowers (and my obsessional pollen dot) become leitmotifs and signals, breadcrumbs to follow, tunes to recognise, and also blue-moons/burning-bushes/flashing-coloured-wings of communication in their own right.

Within the spectrum of works included in the curation of WALLFLOWER you may remark a non-linear, electic but noticeable evolution of visual language. Things which delight me appear in my work, recurring or sometimes just making guest appearances. For example, a Laura Ashley wallpaper pattern or a moon snail hair clip, gap teeth, animal eyes or bows in all the wrong places, faery familiars and fruit-like flesh, there is no distinction between the domestic and the feral for I like to reference the magical traditions of humankind, myth and story, both classical, folkloric and wild.

In our times of social anxiety and non-stop material expectation I’m quite happy to tune into the wink in a daisy’s eye, watch a ribbon whip the wind and lean quietly against a damp green bank, the sun on my face and notice the world, just like a wallflower, in this exhibition I invite you to do the same.”