Atelier Ludmila Gallery
Artist in Residence
Hannah Spinney

March 15 to April 26, 2022
Finished and works in progress exhibiting
Friday April 1st 2022
Weekends 11am – 5pm
by appointment email: hanspinney@atelierludmila

Sketch-Book Binding workshop
Saturday, April 23 1-4pm
$90 includes materials
space is limited email: hanspinney@atelierludmila or call 902 580-0864

Solicitude by Hannah Spinney

noun
the state of being solicitous; anxiety or concern.
solicitudes, causes of anxiety or care.
an attitude expressing excessive attentiveness:

This show explores art as therapy, consisting of works that were created over the last three years that examine, through the lens of my own experience, the effects of dogmatic ideologies in conjunction with mental illness.

Throughout our lives – and in particular, throughout this pandemic, forced inside by the threat of disease and cut off from one another, we’ve experienced a collective trauma.  We have lost loved ones, we have lost trust.  There is understandably the desire to push past the difficulties we have faced so that we might secure for ourselves a quicker end to the collective nightmare.  

It is becoming more vital than ever for us to face down our pain.
Trauma reverberates throughout our bodies, our communities, our culture.  In order to grow beyond it, it must be confronted, it must be felt. 

A short Artist Bio – Hannah Spinney

I am a creator hailing from the beautiful province of Nova Scotia.  I studied fine art and history at NSCAD University, where I graduated in 2017 with my bachelors degree, though I have been drawing and creating as long as I can remember. 

I was raised within a fundamentalist religious community whose influence still reverberates throughout my life, and creations.  My work, as of now, is connected deeply to processes of therapeutic catharsis.  Utilizing the expressive nature of the human body I seek with my work to evoke powerful, visceral emotion. I believe deeply in art as a method of connecting compassionately to one another.

In my early years I discovered the work of Hans Bellmer, the German surrealist, and fell in love with his unsettlingly erotic dolls and bizarre anatomy drawings.  Unlike anything I had been exposed to before, the unease and intrigue that were simultaneously aroused captivated my mind and inspire me still with a desire to evoke such provocations

My practice today values more traditional methods of two-dimensional art-making, focused primarily on drawing and painting and is deeply influenced by the figurative works of artists such as Francisco Goya and Käthe Kollwitz.

This Artist Residency is sponsored by