Artist Statement
Hannah Luxton's studio process is based on a mastery of traditional painting methods and materials. Often grinding her own semi-precious and rare colours, such as malachite and lapis lazuli, Luxton predominantly employs single pigment oils to demonstrate a colours' character and clarity. She uses a variety of washes, glazes and minimal forms to create paintings that express balance, harmony and vibrancy. Luxton's paintings are are sensual things, images that we perceive through our senses.
Hannah Luxton's paintings are inspired by philosophies such as Romanticism and animism, which intimates a living soul in natural phenomena. As such, she explores ways to depict a spiritual power at the heart of the material universe; nature imbued with a divine power. With pared down mark making to communicate the essence of the building blocks of the natural world, Luxton hints at a spiritual dimension beyond appearance. She finds her subjects in her observations of the sublime in landscape – from oceans and waterfalls, to mountains and craters, to the moon and stars – condensing and abstracting each referent into an archetypal version of itself.
With large areas of linen bare and unpainted, Luxton proposes a metaphor for the infinity of the universe, giving form to supreme 'nothingness', dissolving the boundary frequently drawn between 'the natural world' that surrounds us on Earth and the 'natural' sphere of the cosmos.
Embracing this pictorial space, the artist finds a sense of freedom beyond the confines of materiality. She invites viewers into this space, at once a void and a place of almost infinite potentiality.
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BIOGRAPHY
Hannah Luxton studied her Masters the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2010-12) and her BA at Kingston University (2007-09). In 2022 she was elected into the prestigious art collective, The London Group (est. 1913). She is Director and curator of the window gallery, Glass Cloud Gallery, London.
Luxton's work has received support and recognition from The Arts Council England (2024, 2020, 2018), The Young Masters Art Prize (2023), Camden Council (2022, 2019), The British Painting Prize (2019), Dentons Art Prize (2019), The Creekside Open (2017), Betty Malcolm Scholarship, UCL (2012), The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and the Lynn Foundation (2011). Her paintings are held in private collections in the UK, Iceland, the USA and Australia including the Tinie & De Hann collection.
Residencies and expeditions into the wilderness inspire Luxton's work. Notably, in 2019 she embarked on a three month research trip across Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California. In 2018 she completed a research trip to the north of Iceland, after first discovering the country through The Fljotstunga Travel Farm Residency Iceland Award in 2015. Previous to this she was awarded the Trelex Residency, Switzerland (2013).
Selected UK solo and group exhibitions include Wightman Gallery (2024), Velarde Gallery (2024); Quay Arts (2024); Benjamin Parsons x Hannah Payne (2023); The Herman Miller Showroom, London (solo, 2023, 2022); The Royal Academy (Summer Exhibition 2022, 2021); Brompton Cemetery Chapel (solo, 2021); JGM Gallery (2021); Lumen (2019); ArthouSE1 (2019); Drawing Room Gallery (2018); Blank 100 (solo, 2018). International appearances include Midnight Gallery, LA USA (2018); Galleria M, Kolkata, India (2015) and the Fljotstunga Travel Farm, Iceland (2015).