Hannah Gartside

“She uses deadstock fabrics, clothes found in skips and op shops or given to her by friends, garments of dead relatives and fur from pets. For the artist, clothes are psychic objects that not only have history (a faded menstrual stain, the scent of a beloved) but presence; material has its own life… In this sense, the sculptures are about fabric itself, the singular way in which material is able to articulate the immaterial – a current of air, an undertow of desire. Fabric also has its own sound world and Gartside is listening to what it is saying, ‘pulsing, sighing, calling to us’.”

– Hannah Fink, Primavera 2021: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art catalogue essay

Read: Hannah Gartside,  This Body Is Experiencing Pleasure Catalogue essay – Tiarney Miekus 2023

Read: Short story Frances, the moth – Hannah Gartside 2023

Hannah Gartside installation view ‘Fantasies 2’, Ararat Gallery TAMA. Photograph by Louis Lim.
Hannah Gartside ‘The Sleepover’ 2019. Installation view ‘Fantasies 2’, Ararat Gallery TAMA. Photograph by Louis Lim.
Hannah Gartside ‘The Sleepover’ 2018-19, found nighties and slips, found synthetic fabric and cotton ribbon, milliner’s wire, thread (with assistance from Melanie Ward, Monika Holgar and Kate Woodcroft) 670 cm x 280 cm x 210 cm. From the exhibition ‘Fantasies 2’ at Ararat Gallery TAMA. Photograph by Louis Lim.
Hannah Gartside installation view ‘Fantasies 2’, Ararat Gallery TAMA. (L) ‘New Terrain’ 2016, found petticoat lace trim and garter-belt clips, tulle fabric, thread, 360 cm x 161 cm x 264 cm. (R) ‘The Sleepover’ 2019. Photograph by Louis Lim.
Hannah Gartside ‘Ascension I (Angels)’, 2019, found nighties, millinery wire, thread, magnets, steel, paint, 313 cm x 350 cm x 390 cm. From the exhibition ‘Fantasies 2’ at Ararat Gallery TAMA. Photograph by Louis Lim.
Hannah Gartside ‘For Tim (1995-2008)’ 2019-2020, 660 x 630 x 307 cm, found paper bags, glue, found curtain and dining chair, wood, hessian, wood stain, varnish, silk organza fabric, found fabrics (wool, cotton, silk, synthetic), thread, curtain heading tape, framed photograph of the artist’s parents c. 1990. From the exhibition ‘A Family Album’ at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, 2020. Photography by Christian Capurro
Hannah Gartside ‘For Tim (1995-2008)’ 2019-2020 (detail), 660 x 630 x 307 cm, found paper bags, glue, found curtain and dining chair, wood, hessian, wood stain, varnish, silk organza fabric, found fabrics (wool, cotton, silk, synthetic), thread, curtain heading tape, framed photograph of the artist’s parents c. 1990. From the exhibition ‘A Family Album’ at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, 2020. Photography by Christian Capurro
Hannah Gartside ‘For Tim (1995-2008)’ 2019-2020, 660 x 630 x 307 cm, found paper bags, glue, found curtain and dining chair, wood, hessian, wood stain, varnish, silk organza fabric, found fabrics (wool, cotton, silk, synthetic), thread, curtain heading tape, framed photograph of the artist’s parents c. 1990. From the exhibition ‘A Family Album’ at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, 2020. Photography by Christian Capurro
Hannah Gartside ‘For Tim (1995-2008)’ 2019-2020, 660 x 630 x 307 cm, found paper bags, glue, found curtain and dining chair, wood, hessian, wood stain, varnish, silk organza fabric, found fabrics (wool, cotton, silk, synthetic), thread, curtain heading tape, framed photograph of the artist’s parents c. 1990. From the exhibition ‘A Family Album’ at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, 2020. Photography by Christian Capurro
Hannah Gartside ‘For Tim (1995-2008)’ 2019-2020 (detail), 660 x 630 x 307 cm, found paper bags, glue, found curtain and dining chair, wood, hessian, wood stain, varnish, silk organza fabric, found fabrics (wool, cotton, silk, synthetic), thread, curtain heading tape, framed photograph of the artist’s parents c. 1990. From the exhibition ‘A Family Album’ at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, 2020. Photography by Christian Capurro