Announcing representation: Hannah Gartside

Tolarno Galleries is delighted to announce representation of Hannah Gartside (born 1987, London, UK; lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne).

Gartside is currently on view at Primavera 2021: Young Australian Artists, the annual Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney showcase of Australian artists aged 35 years and under.

Her installation of five kinetic textile sculptures each represent an iconic female figure of the past – dancer Loïe Fuller (1862-1928), painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c.1654), Tarot card illustrator Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith (1878-1951), Biblical ur-woman Lilith, and actor Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923).

Made from 19th and 20th century clothes and fabric, the works were designed with their subjects’ personal histories in mind – splays of red velvet evoke the violent scenes of Artemisia Gentileschi’s renowned 17th century paintings, a sail of pink silk crêpe honours Loïe Fuller’s pioneering stage lighting designs and moving fabric costuming.

The suspended forms assert their bodily presence, choreographically revolving and whirring. These works highlight the erasure of women from the canon of art history, and ongoing gender inequality more broadly.

Embedded in feminism and material culture, Gartside uses vintage and found textiles to create installations, sculptures and costumes. Skills of dress-making, patchwork quilting and fabric dyeing accrued during her former career as a theatre costumier at Queensland Ballet are elevated to the conceptually rigorous. Both deeply personal and fiercely communal, Gartside’s works engage fundamental experiences and emotions of our human condition: longing, tenderness, connection, desire and wonderment.

Hannah Gartside is a finalist in the upcoming Ellen José Art Award at Bayside Gallery, Victoria, a $15,000 non-acquisitive award to a female visual artist aged 18-35 years, on view from July 2022. She will next exhibit in the June 2022 group show Text Tile, a showcase of textile based practices of over 50 artists within Australia and New Zealand, at Caves Gallery in Melbourne.

Tolarno Galleries will present a solo exhibition by Hannah Gartside in 2023. Visit her artist page for more information and images of her work.

Image: Hannah Gartside with her sculptures Lilith, Pixie and Artemisia at Primavera 2021: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Photography by Louis Lim.