When looking at Hannah Hall’s recent artworks, the word “experimental” do not come to mind. Controlled and considered, this emerging artist’s textile pieces are wrapped, pleated, and tucked expertly, carrying hidden stories and elusive meanings. Winner of Artichoke’s 2024 Craft Fresh Award, the young, Melbourne-based maker’s work occupies a space somewhere between expanded painting practice and textile investigation.
Hannah Hall’s works hanging on the left wall at ‘Craft Fresh!’. Rochelle Morris’s textile floor art sits in the foreground. Jing Liang’s ceramics are seen in the background.
Image: By Sarah Forgie. Courtesy of Craft Victoria
With a deep-rooted interest in art since her teenage years, Hall’s formal studies through her Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT were heavily geared towards exploring the many avenues within painting. However, it was only through completing her honours that Hall’s experiments with textiles began to emerge, evolving into her most recent 2023 collection. “The kind of work I’m doing now just started to appear out of nowhere,” Hall explains, sharing how she “fell into it and it just felt right.” Beginning with sticking pieces of material onto her canvas, Hall notes 2023 was “a turning point,” evolving her art from painting towards the more textile-driven collection she presented at Craft Fresh in Melbourne.
Hannah Hall’s works on display at ‘Craft Fresh!’, from left to right: Cough Syrup Care, 2023; Sleepover, 2023; and Dreaming / Mapping, 2023.
Image: Simon Strong
Largely self-taught in textile techniques, Hall recalls fond memories of her family members and their connections to fabric. “My mum used to sew all the time, and my aunty makes quilts,” she shares, noting how the family’s proclivity for sewing seems to have reached her only in the last few years. “I really enjoy the unpredictability of fabric; it’s this kind of material that isn’t always able to be completely controlled,” Hall says. “It’s so present in our everyday lives, and it connects bits of us - from the shape of our bodies to our senses, to physical stains and to memories.”
Across Hannah Hall’s artworks, memory is a strong driving factor, balanced carefully with ambiguity and curiosity. Titled Sleepover, her 2023 piece exhibited in the “Fresh 2024” show was created from bed sheets gifted by her grandmother. “One of the memories I have of visiting my grandma’s house was that we were always having sleepovers. It was a really nice time in my childhood,” reflects Hall. While the resulting artwork alludes to this memory, Hall deliberately refrains from attaching literal messaging to her pieces. “I like to leave a sense of mystery so that people can get the essence of some person or place, but they wouldn’t know the specifics.” Hall’s pieces are an invitation for viewers to forge unique connections to the artworks and the fabrics that form them, projecting their own memories, thoughts and feelings onto them.
Detail of Hannah Hall’s Sleepover, 2023.
Image: Simon Strong
Similarly, the artwork titled Battered and Bruised is a small piece crafted from her friend’s chef whites. “Because you can see it’s a chef’s coat, people get an essence of an imaginary character, but are not sure who the character is,” explains Hall, noting how viewers may “feel a presence of a person, but also an absence of them.” Describing this artwork as “a sort of portrait, but not in a literal sense,” Battered and Bruised embodies an elusive charm that’s prominent across many of Hall’s artworks.
Hannah Hall in her studio.
Image: Hugo Begg
Careful to craft only with fabrics that resonate with her, Hall salvages materials that are texturally interesting and different to ones she has previously worked with. Sourcing the majority of her materials from local op shops, her selections are informed by an environmental standpoint as well. “I like to reuse and recycle things that already exist rather than contributing to consumption. You can find really interesting things in op shops that you may not otherwise reach for in a fabric store and it contributes towards the chance element of not knowing what you’re going to find,” which ultimately helps to fuel “the creative cycle through not knowing what you have to work with,” she shares. Embracing spontaneity, Hall’s practice is grounded in the idea of ‘working in the moment’, relying on the artist’s ability to feel a connection with the materials before her and to craft them into something memorable.
