Winner of the Molly Morpeth Canaday 2021 Supreme Award Hannah Ireland is one of the youngest emerging New Zealand artists - so young, she is currently looking forwards to her upcoming university capping ceremony. There has not been a long relaxing summer break for the just-graduated Elam student, though - as well as being chosen as the major winner of the MMCA 21 $10,000 prize, she has been attending art fairs and working on a research scholarship and has only just started to come to terms with the attention that her win has attracted. Two of her distinctive paintings were shortlisted for the award and sold within days of the exhibition opening, and she is now considering several gallery offers of representation.
"It's been... overwhelming. I’m still working through it - for the first couple of days after MMCA I had to turn my phone off." Hannah says. "It's been a lot in a short time."
Hannah's winning piece, They Laughed I Cried has provoked an emotive response in our gallery audience. Painted on a recycled glass window she sourced from a junk shop, guest judge Karl Chitham described the work’s captivation of the viewer as a result of the 'urgency and emotion of the making.' Hannah says she had the idea during lockdown, "when we were all engaging with the view through windows a lot."
Visitors to the exhibition, on show at Whakatāne's Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi until April, have used words such as disturbing, uneasy, or dark to describe her painting - which is something Hannah has heard before. "I get that one a lot actually. It surprises me when people say my works are scary, because they don’t seem scary to me - my painting is a way of finding peace with situations, and it's a way of communicating that peace with others. But this work was definitely about mourning, so I like that people have picked up on the emotion I wanted to convey. When I paint I feel that I am embedding so much emotion - I feel flattered, really, when my work resonates with people on such a deep personal level."
They Laughed I Cried is a portrait of a vaguely clownish figure, their visage somehow rain-streaked and melting away with watery grief even as their flowered outfit remains pragmatically solid. Made in such a way that the initial marks on the glass are visible even under the final brushstrokes, the view from the back of the window is poignantly different to that which the viewer has access. But Hannah has no desire to show both sides to the public. "I feel as if the making, the thinking through my own negotiations is a sacred process. If I hang my paintings so people can see the back as well, it feels too personal - like the audience can see too much. I'm working through that. I feel that might happen in the future - I'm getting more comfortable with it, anyway."
Hannah's next project is involvement in a celebration of portraiture at Jhana Millers Gallery in Wellington, timed to coincide with the inaugural Kiingi Tuheita Portraiture Award in May. The new award is aimed at encouraging emerging Māori artists, and although Hannah has not entered herself, she says she is heartened by the increased support around for the young makers. "Some of my peers and friends in the art world have seen what I have been doing, the success I've had in the competition and they’ve thought - maybe I should do that. It’s been good. Yeah. It’s nice seeing other young artists out here too."
