M.A.R.
Manifest Artist Residency
2020/2021
Hannah Zimmerman
Hannah Zimmerman is an artist and educator based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She completed her MFA in Interdisciplinary Practice at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in summer of 2020. Zimmerman graduated from Miami University in 2014 with a BFA in Studio Art and a BS in Art Education and spent a summer studying art abroad in Florence, Italy. In 2014, she was awarded the Yeck College Artist Fellowship through the Dayton Art Institute and exhibited her work at the museum. Zimmerman has been teaching visual arts at a public high school since 2015.
Artist's Statement:
"Through my work I seek to explore the physical and emotional boundaries of my own existence. I continuously return to the familiar interior of my studio as a physical manifestation of my own inner world. As I move through the space—creating, collecting, arranging, rearranging—I sift through memories and wade through my own expectations of myself. The resulting images and objects are visually connected through a process of translation; I look to the familiar and structure the present and the not yet familiar through the lens of the past. Every time a form, an item of clothing, or a depiction of space is repeated, it gathers new memories thereby growing and changing in the process. Consistently unpredictable, the translations hold traces of the originals; functionality may be lost, but emotional relevance is amplified. At once permanent and fleeting, these iterations mirror my own evolution as I continue to shift through time and space. Working within Henri Bergsons philosophy of duration, I look for opportunities to stretch and condense moments in time.
Part of this ongoing process involves working with clothing that, over the years, has been cycled out of my wardrobe. By stitching it into paintings and transforming it into stuffed depictions of objects from my studio, I have come to appreciate the softness, vulnerability, and inherent strength of the fabric. Once utilitarian, the now altered material functions as a removable skin, providing a malleable connection between body, space, and time. The objects I depict vary in importance, but most often represent significant components of my life and identity. Playful in their self-imposed solitude, bright yet contemplative, each painting embraces potentiality, disorder, and a desire for control.
I am motivated by the process of art-making as it unfolds over time. The work, in a way, has become about making the work. In the same way that I care for plants in order to understand how to care for plants, I make art in order to understand how to make art. Both the artwork and the process itself are self-reflective in nature and are only propelled forward by an ongoing desire to get at the core of how I make meaning of the world. By focusing on the confined space of the studio, I can document how the space is formed by me and how I am formed by the space. I look to that which is overlooked, to my own shortcomings, and to the patterns that continue to emerge. I create so that the dialogue pushes forward, however, I won't know what that dialogue is until I move on and look back.
Looking forward, my main goal is to increase the complexity of my imagery. I am intrigued by the traces that reflect the presence and the absence of the figure within my work. I intend to continue to build up the layering of materiality, but also further develop the associations of time woven into the spaces I depict. I would like to continue to play with the conflict of presence and absence as I forge even farther down this pathway in my work."
The images pictured at right are a sampling of those submitted with Hannah's application.
As Manifest Artist in Residence Hannah will be based out of our MAR North Studio at the Gallery on Woodburn Avenue.
See more and learn about Hannah's work here:
http://hrzimmerman.com
Information on how to apply for future SIR or MAR awards can be found here.
