Hannah Ireland joins Hamilton Gallery

Following her second solo show with the gallery, artist Hannah Ireland has joined Laree Payne Gallery in Hamilton, New Zealand. Having only graduated in 2020 with a bachelors in both Fine Arts and Psychology, it appears the artist’s career progressing at a rapid pace.

Working largely in paint, the artist produces haunting, sometimes spectral works explore a realm of portraiture that treads the edges abstraction. Ireland entered the art world with a bang, taking out the Gordon Harris Prize for Studio BFA with the University of Auckland. Since then, she has exhibited across New Zealand and undertaken several solo shows, as well as achieving the Major Award at the Molly Morpeth Canaday Award held by Whakatāne Museum and Arts, Whakatane.

In the exhibition text for her first exhibition with the gallery, Amiria Taumata succinctly breaks down the artists practice, saying that “for Ireland, to make something and to create representations is to spectate, an act that occurs within small pocketed moments; from the glow of the tv show you spent four hours watching to the conversation you forgot to listen to. Ireland offers a vocabulary for introspection, a space of permanent impermanence and a small look into the potential that comes out of looking and listening”.

While Ireland’s show with Laree Payne Gallery has now closed, her work is currently on show at the Te Uru Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand.