Materials, Text and Abjection: The works of Hannah Stratford.

Featured in Round Lemon’s ‘WORM’ exhibition, Hannah Stratford’s works are a combination of sculpture, text and digital collage. Playing with the notions of temporality, material value, seduction, eroticisim and the juvenile, Hannah’s practice is both bodily and captivating. Here I talk to Hannah about the intersection between text and form, as well as her future plans as an Artist now that she’s graduated.

‘I Lure Your Brain and Out it Comes, Soaking Wet in Light’

Your text ‘To put your hands inside yourself’ is a really rich piece of creative writing interlaced with research about abjection, desire and sensuality. How did you decide that texts like this formed an integral part of your practice?

In my second year of study, I decided to choose the ‘Art and Visual Culture’ Pathway instead of graduating in just Fine Arts. This was a pivotal point for me in developing my practice. I began navigating the world of art writing, (Maria Fusco’s ‘Give up Art’ is a fantastic place to start if anybody would be interested) deciphering how to write in context to my physical making, testing things out, finding what I liked and what I didn’t, and lots and lots of reading. It was challenging but in a very beautiful way; I’m incredibly grateful that I decided to take the option.

It taught me the beauty in words and their applications, how to structure and how to deconstruct, all things that I consider in physical processes. I suppose, I consider my writings as art objects because of this, which is why it feels so fluid situated in my artistic process and decision making. Writing is challenging for me, but it’s definitely what teaches me the most. The content of my writings will change as my interests do, I went quite quickly from writing about rugs in Staines to metaphysical boundaries and self-appeasement, but the more I write the more I fall in love with it. I’m looking forward to writing something new when I have some time! 

Can your works exist without text? Or do the two go hand in hand?

In terms of my process and arriving at results, writing is really integral to my outcomes. It gives me space to explore the content behind the work so that I have a better understanding of my decision making and the context of where it physically sits. I also think that sometimes I can evoke the things I want to better in words than I can in form. In my mind, when I write, I aim to so that I can publish it in its own right, it’s able to stand alone. So I suppose that really they don’t necessarily have to sit together, but I think due to the overlapping themes and visual imagery they lend themselves to doing so. I find that writing gives a hand to the viewer to tap into the things that I am trying to portray in my physical work. When I was younger and going to art galleries, I would really pine over the synopsis as a crutch to solidify my understanding. Maybe subconsciously I have developed this process as a response to the way that I started viewing art. But maybe not… ultimately I just love words and language. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that they can’t exist without one another in the sense that I wouldn’t arrive at the same physical result without the vulnerability and learning through writing, but they live independently in the way that I publish them to be so, i.e. they aren’t made to be viewed together or exist simultaneously. 

Your signature ‘form’ seems to be these provocative phallic-like sculptures that suggest something bodily – perhaps a finger or a tongue. What inspired you to make these forms?

At the moment, I'm really interested in the boundaries between play, the juvenile, ignorance etc. and eroticism and desire. Initially, my interest in this form came from a maquette titled ‘Sticky Fingers’. This was a really pivotal piece of work for me, I started to get to grips with that this phallic like form meant in my practice, and how I was able to contrast its connotations through material decision and titling. Now that I have started developing these, they’ve grown in size, almost to match my height, I think as I become more confident with confronting these ideas within my physical practice and also within myself. It’s a suggestive form, but through the studies of abjection, it allowed to detach from this. I see them now as cerebral and often forget what they resemble. It now feels like quite a natural response, which is interesting as for so long I felt I had to stray away from the abstraction of the human form! 

‘Oh No ! I Dropped My Ice Cream Cone’ [print]

What are your preferred materials when making sculptures and why?

My favourite material to use when making larger sculptures would definitely be fine casting plaster. It’s a very temporal material, I mix it with acrylic paint which changes its consistency and the rate at which it sets. There’s only a very short period where it is usable for what I need it for. This often means that through its setting process, the visibility of my hand imprints changes quite drastically, i.e. when it's runny it pours and when it starts to become thicker you can see where my fingerprints have laid it down. It is particularly important for me to apply it with my hands, as it relates to my interest in their functions, but also as it's exothermic there’s a satisfaction of mixing it in my studio with cold water and then applying this warm and (often) sickly coloured paste. For me, the process of plaster is just as valuable as its material uses.

Fine casting plaster especially has connotations with craft and more functional processes, which is something that I always consider when choosing material. I’m interested in how fine art and craft intersect, the connotations attached etc, which was the basis of my dissertation, so I’ve found that plaster sits quite comfortably on this spectrum that exists.

‘Tandem Like’

Your digital collage ‘To Propose a Gentle Lick’ suggests ideas around ingestion and insertion, whilst maintaining seductive and sensual undertones. How did you curate the composition of the collage in such a way to achieve all of these ideas?

I start by collecting photos, be it taken by myself or sourced elsewhere, which I feel have an innate sense of what I’m trying to say. I try not to unpick why I’m drawn to an image as it often starts to make sense once I place them together. I then pull them apart, cut them up on photoshop; it’s a very forgiving software that allows me to go back and forth. I build image by image, adding different elements until I feel like it’s finished. In my practice, digital collages act as a form of sketch-booking. It's beneficial that they come out as finished results as I think they inform my more abstract sculptures and serve as accessible material for the viewer. I’m in the process of making a new one, which is exciting in its own right, but more so that I know it leads me to new explorations, be it writing or physical making. I’m not sure where this one is going to take me, but I am very happy to be making again after graduating! 

‘To Propose a gentle lick’

I think I’ve fallen in love with the title ‘To Propose a Gentle Lick’ as much as I have with the collage itself. It’s so poetic – how did you come up with this title?

I think the title came to me whilst I was reading Helen Marten’s ‘Boiled Inbetween’. She has been a huge inspiration to me for years and reading her book really revolutionised my practice. It’s so unbelievably visceral, my favourite few sentences are ‘We see all those picked fingers as a clear surrogate for fixation, busy hands only a minute away from a cigarette propped in the mouth. Busy hands only a minute away from sex as a function for geography, outside here, where the night is black, sweat is ozone, something sharp and chemical. Something here to poison with.’ Her whole book really struck me, I can’t recommend it enough. So, I’d say that she was the one who encouraged me to not shy away from language, I always remind myself to sit within word’s violence. To Propose A Gentle Lick just felt like the natural phrase that underpinned the things I had been thinking about, and the visual stimulation I wanted to make. 

Outer Ingestion [Installation still]

It’s so exciting to hear that you’ve been awarded funding through the UWE Enterprise Scholarship scheme – we’d love to know more! Please could you tell us a bit more about the scheme and what you propose to do with the funds?

Thank you! It’s been great and I feel very fortunate for the opportunity. It’s an 8-week mentorship programme with a grant from the university to help kickstart a business idea. As I mentioned before, I’m interested in how fine art is digested in greater society, how it can intersect with craft, how it can be made more accessible etc. I’m always really conscious of the ‘art bubble’, I use it as a way to check in with my thinking and application of my work in space. I feel like there is a gap in the market in the way fine art is consumed, so I proposed a platform where guest artists each month produce a consumable ‘gift box’ or ‘hamper’ containing commodifiable elements of their practice. For example, in my case, I would produce a box that contained a print of my collage, a sticker of my sculpture, a miniature sculpture, and a piece of jewellery (that I also make on the side) which all fit the same aesthetic. The idea is that it would help artists market themselves and provide them with income, whilst also making contemporary art more accessible to those who might not be within the closer art sphere. 

It’s been quite a challenging process and I still have miles to go with it, but I feel quite confident in the idea and look forward to its progression!

What can we expect to see from you next now that you’ve graduated?

Life has been very busy recently, graduating feels like another lifetime ago! I’ve been very fortunate to gain a contract with a Bristol female-led immersive theatre company. It’s been incredibly fascinating learning from them, performance art was never something I’d explored before but it certainly opened my eyes to different processes that might apply to my practice. 

It’s only a 3-month contract so my aim is that once I finish in September, I can spend some more time on my creative work and business proposal. I’m the head of an artist studio shared with 6 other UWE alumni, and my first aim will be to get that up and running and see what we could be capable of when working collaboratively. They’re all incredibly talented artists, I’ll link their Instagram handles below if you’d be interested in checking them out! I feel very grateful to have a space that I can step into straight after graduating so that it doesn’t infringe on my making. It’s also my plan to set up a graduate show. We very sadly didn’t receive one due to Covid, and I think for a sense of closure it’s important for us to have a celebration of our work and time at university. 

I’m working a hospitality job on the side too, where I ended up meeting one of Bristol’s biggest current street sculptors. They very kindly have said that I can assist in an upcoming project which is unbelievably exciting, so I’ll be sure to update my page as and when that develops! 

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Check out more of Hannah’s work on her Instagram

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