“Contemplating Life and Stuff”
A selection of new works by Hannah Wooll

The Lowry Hotel
4th October – 12st November 2007
PREVIEW EVENING: Thursday 4th October, 6pm – 8pm.
The Lowry Hotel, 50 Dearmans Place, Chapel Wharf Salford, M3 5LH

Hannah Wooll was born in 1977 in Norfolk, England. In 2000 she graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a 1st Class BA (hons) Degree in Fine Art, Painting. Wooll then went on to study at the prestigious Royal Academy Schools, London, graduating in 2003 with a Postgraduate Diploma in Painting, receiving the May Cristea Award for Fine Art.

Since graduating Hannah Wooll has been living and working in London, Newcastle, and East Anglia, England, and has shown both nationally and internationally.
Shows include "Radical Art", Jerwood Space, London, 2005; "New London Kicks", Wooster Projects, New York, 2005; "Jerusalem", Dean Clough, Halifax, 2006; and "Fastest with the Mostest", Carter and Gallagher, London, 2007.

The series of works on show at The Lowry Hotel pays homage to the depiction of the female within art history and old Hollywood, tethered with the apathy and frivolity of more contemporary media imagery. Creating these paintings from hand made maquettes of clay, paper and satin allows Wooll to manipulate the desired female form, and investigate the area between awkwardness and elegance.

The constructed world of sparsely populated sets illuminated by artificial light in which the artist chooses to place these diminutive figures also allows a playful control, which in turn translates to the painted realm.

The women in Wooll’s paintings gaze inwardly in self-absorption, or stare out wantonly at their audience. Defiant or insecure, hopeless and headstrong they search for recognition and reassurance. They are marooned in their painted worlds, alone, or in uncommunicative couples and groups. When the paintings are viewed together these isolated figures begin to create a different dialogue, and the hinted at narratives within Wooll’s work takes on a more vivid shape, exploring the dynamic between her painted seductresses and the viewer caught between these vying eyes.

"if we were Charles Saatchi, we'd probably have bought up Hannah Wooll", quote from review of RA show at Harewood House, Artscene online Arts Magazine, 2004

"The work in RAdical demonstrates how students were encouraged to use their technical skills with the paintbrush not only to paint pictures, but also to convey their own ideas and insights…. During Hannah Wooll's last year there, she hit upon an idea that would lead to her own distinctive imagery.",extractfrom "Academic Brilliance" by Colin Gleadell, Telegraph Magazine, 5 February 2005.

(Image 'Cry Baby Cry, Hannah Wooll)

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