Hannah Ireland, Three Carriage Train, 2023. Fabric dye on silk, 50.4 x 45.5cm. Courtesy: the artist and Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington.

Jhana Millers presents Wet Stairs by Hannah Ireland, a new body of paintings on translucent silk made with fabric dye. Ireland (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi), is an early career artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, and this is her 3rd solo show with the gallery.

Wet Stairs explores the regenerative power of observing and finding one’s whakapapa to create new memories. It incorporates the three powers of Mana Atua, Mana Tangata, and Mana Whenua — connecting the past, present, and future while disrupting the traditional concept of portraiture. Wet Stairs acts as a mirror reflecting society back to itself — inviting the viewer to slow down, contemplate and empathise.

In her paintings, Ireland weaves magical figures and speculative fiction with partial connections — slipping across new genres. Her work emanates a reciprocal energy force that is both uncomfortably curious and confusing. The work is akin to a 1950s banned Māori song being played by a physical human form atua wahine in a stark white gallery. It holds the electricity of a night out on Karangahape Road and pays homage to the delicate, quiet strengths found within a community.

Wet Stairs makes us aware of our unconscious minds, the delicacies in being, and the very-real intimacies of human experience.

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