Biography & Artist Statement
Hannah Jordan is an artist from Cleveland, Ohio, who works primarily in collage and printmaking. She received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Ohio State University in 2021. Her work has been shown and sold in various galleries, including a solo exhibition at Skylab Gallery in 2024. During her time in Columbus, Hannah was also awarded a Greater Columbus Arts Council Funds for Artists Grant and completed a fellowship at Columbus Printed Arts Center. Hannah currently resides in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she is an MFA Printmaking Candidate at the University of Tennessee.
Adornment, patterned textiles, and non-masculine colors have historically devalued femininity and encouraged complacency in women. Drawing influence from the founding principles of the Pattern and Decoration Movement and artists such as Miriam Schapiro, I use color, pattern, and collage to celebrate feminine aesthetics and reclaim the relationship between decoration and femininity. Utilizing gestures appropriated from Western European canonical representations of mythological women, I create collages that abstract my own body through repetition of form to camouflage my figure from the observer. The act of camouflage gives my body a defense mechanism while in these objectified positions that are history replicated throughout Western European canonical art, freeing my body of societal and art historical burdens.
Imagery generated from the collages is then used to create printed and time-based works that explore color relationships to expand the spectrum of feminine color. Colors are frequently associated with gender. Companies produce household products marketed for women in pink and lavender hues, nurseries of baby girls are clad in pink, and even male Modernist painters were evaluated as lesser for using pastel colors. By incorporating these traditionally feminine colors into complex palettes, I aim to challenge what constitutes feminine color. Additionally, the visual complexity, optical blending, and after-images produced by these palettes create an extra-sensory experience for the viewer, thus further confusing visual perception to aid in camouflaging my body.
Femininity is not a universal experience; each individual who identifies as female holds a unique perception of femininity. Foundational elements of my feminine identity are incorporated into conversations of ornamentation in the work through the reproduction and alteration of patterns connected to my mother’s garments and home decor. My mother, a traditional stay-at-home mom who embodies the feminine archetype, shaped my view of femininity during my formative years. By incorporating depictions of my abstracted body within these patterns, the figure is further camouflaged and becomes an element of ornamentation. The body within the pattern is no longer objectified for its feminine features but appreciated for its formal qualities of design. Through repetition, color, and pattern, I camouflage my body to monumentalize my interpretation of femininity, honor the role of decoration in the history of feminine aesthetics, and represent my body free of objectification.