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Artist: Hannah Stoll
Hannah Stoll is an artist based at SAWStudio for Arts and Works in Carbondale, CO. She works primarily in oil painting, making forays into printmaking and multimedia. The human figure, portraiture, and built environments are her most frequent subjects. In 2020, Stoll received a BA in Organismal Biology and Ecology from Colorado College and moved to the Roaring Fork Valley shortly thereafter. She continues to use concepts and inspiration from her scientific study in her artwork. Patterns found in nature, whether visual or ecological, fascinate her in how they complement and inform the human condition. Stoll’s work returns again and again to these themes and to the unprecedented contemporary ways we feel about our world and ourselves. She has exhibited work in Denver and at several local galleries and art centers.
This group of portraiture communicates common sentiments felt among young people in the artist’s life contextualized in a traditional approach to oil painting. The subjects are mainly women, in moments carefully chosen for their expressive openness and personal honesty. The uncertainty, daily joy, and fear felt by young adults is universal and ancient. However, the 21st century has brought an unprecedented climatic challenge that changes the way we can think about our futures, the stability of the planet and of societies. By placing the people in Stoll’s life in traditional portraiture, she ties them to those that came before while creating a reminder of the contemporary plight that sets them apart. By painting even their joyful and loving moments, she suggests resilience and universal coping methods in the face of formidable real-world circumstances. These portraits incorporate pattern elements that decoratively flatten compositions and take the human subject(s) out of realistic context. The patterns harness natural elements with varying degrees of order and of interception with the figures. This common thread suggests our relationship with the natural world and our emotional and physical reliance on it.