Hannah Ireland (born 1995) is a New Zealand contemporary artist who creates gestural and expressionist paintings. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout New Zealand, and she was featured in the triennial Aotearoa Contemporary Exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery in 2024. Her works are in the Arts House Trust collection, The Dowse Art Museum collection, and the Auckland University collection.
Background and education Ireland is of Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi descent. She was born in Onehunga, and lives and works in Auckland.
In 2022, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (first class honours) from the University of Auckland.
Career
Art Ireland is primarily a portraitist. She often paints on glass, sometimes repurposing found or abandoned windows. Painting on glass allows her painting process to showcase potential abstraction, ambiguity, and spontaneity. By building up thick layers of paint to create three-dimensional figures, she creates blurring boundaries between representation and abstraction. She also paints on canvas, but draws on the technique she uses when painting on glass so that the paint and composition is still built up in her specific style. When working with canvas, she often cuts and stitches parts of the canvas to create patterns and indentations that influence the compositions.
She has taught this technique to classes before, having held an experimental painting workshop at the Gus Fisher Gallery, which oversaw the class using Perspex as the canvas to create self-portraits.
Awards +YearAwardLocation2023National Contemporary art awards – Friends of Waikato Museum Merit awardNew Zealand2021The Molly Morpeth Canaday Award Supreme WinnerNew Zealand
Selected Exhibitions +YearTitle LocationSolo or Group2024Aotearoa ContemporaryAuckland Art Gallery Toi o TāmakiGroup2024Tossing and Turning Aotearoa Art Fair, AucklandSolo2024 Nā Te Ārai, Ko MāhuTautai Gallery, Auckland Group 2023 Strange Friends The Dowse Art Museum, Lower HuttGroup 2023 Waiting RoomLaree Payne Gallery, HamiltonSolo2023 Running with ScissorsTe Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, AucklandSolo 2023Wet StairsJhana Millers Gallery, Wellington Solo2023Summer Selection Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington Group 2022It Feels So Good To Be AliveJhana Millers Gallery, WellingtonSolo2022I'm Just A SpectatorLaree Payne Gallery, HamiltonGroup2021A New NetTim Melville Gallery, Auckland Group2021In Praise of ShadowsIvan Anthony, AucklandGroup 2021Hate to Rain on Your Parade Sanc Gallery, Auckland Solo2021Some New New Zealand PaintingBroker Galleries, Queenstown Group 2021Stuck in the MudJhana Millers, WellingtonSolo2021The Kiingi Tūheitia Portraiture AwardNew Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington2021Molly Morpeth Canaday AwardWhakatāne Museum and Arts2021He Taura HereLaree Payne Gallery, HamiltonGroup2020Handshake in HamiltonWeasel Gallery, HamiltonGroup 2020Cheap WineWindow Gallery, Auckland Solo2020SAW_SEE-SEE_SAWSanc Gallery, AucklandGroup2019 Martin was Always the Class ClownElam Galleries, AucklandSolo
References