Hannah Secord Wade

Summer Under

June 3, 2022 - June 25, 2022

Hannah Secord Wade received a Master of Fine Art (MA) from Chelsea College of Arts, London, and a BA Fine Art from Hampshire College, Amherst. She has been a resident at the Arteles Creative Center (Finland), Open Wabi (Ohio), and The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation (New York). In 2020, her piece, Dog Fountain, became part of the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, courtesy of Alex Katz and the Alex Katz Foundation. Her work has been shown in London and Paris, and throughout the United States. She lives and works in Maine.

"My work depicts a continuous cycle of containment and release, in a series of failed attempts to gain control. Using landscape as a primary focus, the process begins with a gathering of plants, animals, and everyday objects. These elements are pushed into piles, stuffed into containers, or guarded by beings. As the works progress, these collections are slowly washed away, and later rebuilt. Each piece depicts an action, as land is moved and shifted, contained and then cleansed.

The gathering period is an effort to organize my surroundings, and create a sense of stability. The cleansing phase is an acknowledgement of the futility of this attempt, and clears space for the process to begin again. I view my work as representation being eaten by abstraction, as objects are defined and obscured, formed and erased."