Hanna Washburn

About the Work

Hanna Washburn builds sculptures from recycled clothing and textiles, furniture, household items, and other materials that have former utilities and associations. She sews by hand and works intuitively, allowing the forms to grow organically into complex aggregates of color, pattern, and texture. The resulting sculptures gradually emerge as anthropomorphic and bodily: they droop, gesture, and hold space. Washburn’s work visualizes the patchwork of identity-forming and the complex joy of existing inside a body.

Jog your Memory is about the colors, patterns, forms, and gestures that remind you of something. Sometimes those connections are strong and vibrant; sometimes they are fuzzy or choppy. Washburn uses the materials of everyday life to build up sculptures with distinct personalities. Washburn will occasionally incorporate the literal object or material from her past—or, if she no longer has the thing, will recreate the specific pattern or item in her own hand.

Jog Your Memory also marks the first time Washburn has displayed several of her hanging sculptures together, a relatively new part of her practice. The hanging sculptures occupy the space of suspended items found in the home: hanging planters, light fixtures, and chandeliers. They are inspired in particular by her great grandmother’s front porch—a place Washburn remembers as sunlit and filled with many delightful hanging objects: flowers and bird cages and other intriguing things. Washburn’s hanging sculptures also serve the purpose of occupying the space between the floor, the wall, and the ceiling, interrupting the exhibition and interrupting your thoughts. Washburn thinks of them as representing the way a memory can stop you in your tracks.

About the Artist

Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in Beacon, New York. Washburn’s work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Cult Bytes, and the Femme Art Review. Exhibition venues include SPRING/BREAK Art Fair (New York, NY), the Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz, NY), NADA Art Fair (New York, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Munson (Utica, NY), Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York, NY), and Rice University (Houston, TX). Washburn has held artist residences at organizations including Haystack Mountain School (2023), Monson Arts (2020), Vermont Studio Center (2019), the Textile Arts Center (2018), and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Colony (2018).

Washburn received her MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in 2018, and her BA in Fine Art and English Literature from Kenyon College in 2014. She currently works in the Curatorial Department at Storm King Art Center.