SHAPESHIFTER

Bio :
Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in Beacon, NY, known for her hand-sewn sculptures crafted from recycled textiles and found objects. Her work has garnered attention from publications such as The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Cult Bytes, and the Femme Art Review. Washburn’s pieces have been exhibited at venues including SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, the Dorsky Museum of Art, NADA Art Fair, and the Wassaic Project. She has held artist residencies at institutions including Haystack Mountain School, Vermont Studio Center, and Monson Arts. Washburn earned her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2018 and her BA from Kenyon College in 2014. She currently works in the Curatorial Department at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY.

Artist’s Statement:
Hanna Washburn constructs sculptures from repurposed textiles, furniture, and household items, sourced from her own life and those of her friends and family. Sewing by hand and working intuitively, Washburn allows her forms to evolve into complex aggregates of color, pattern, and texture, visualizing the patchwork of identity-forming and the complex joy of existing inside a body. With a background in traditional sewing, Washburn honors and experiments with her inherited process, employing and complicating textile techniques like quilting, embroidery, and upholstery. The anthropomorphic sculptures in Shapeshifter blur boundaries between lifeforms, each one variously resembling abstracted bodies, flora, and fauna. These works assert their autonomy as they transcend the utility of their materials, growing and changing and extending into space.