SPACE 1 : ROWENA HANNAN
Exhibition dates. 22 April - 4 May 2025
Opening Reception : Wed 23 April 2025, 6:00 - 8:30 pm
DEVOTION
This body of work, explores the relationship with the picturesque and the sublime through the lens of 19th and early to mid-twentieth Century Australian art. I am interested in the artist's reaction to what seemed unknowable in the natural world and the desire to relate to this landscape. From the perceived awe and sometimes terror of the Australian bush to the gentrification of this natural environment as a component of white settlement. Through the medium of ceramics, I have explored the natural and cultivated landscape within the different spaces of the gallery. I have looked at the artists’ response to the wilderness and how nature can be controlled and used as metaphor. When left undisturbed it evokes a sense of mysticism and autonomy. This is perhaps why it is unknowable?
Rowena Hannan has been working as a practicing ceramic artist and teacher for over thirty years. Focusing largely on figurative sculpture, she has exhibited in both solo and group shows throughout this period along with the completion of some large public sculptures which have allowed her to explore a range of other materials beyond clay, such as concrete, bronze and steel. Throughout her years of artistic practice, she is constantly drawn to the narrative in her concepts, and these encompass her love of personal history and storytelling.
Rowena taught Visual arts at Firbank Grammar from 1997- 2019 and was Head of Art for 8 years. She was also Head of Visual Arts Korowa Anglican Girls’ School from 2020- 2023. She is now working full time on her art practice. Rowena has been a VCE reviewer of folios around the state of Victoria and has delivered art education papers internationally and in 2019, was artist in residence in Vallauris, in the South of France. She is looking forward to her next residency at Taller Gingell in Barcelona in 2025. Rowena is a co-author of an award winning VCE textbook for Studio Arts, ‘Artisan’ published by Cambridge Press.
CATALOGUE
