Hannah Hill in her studio at Stove Works. Hannah was in Residence from April through June of 2025.
Cam Clark: Hi! I’m Cam
Hannah Hill: Hi, I’m Hannah.
CC: So, you were born in Alabama, yeah?
HH: I was, yeah. I'm originally from Alabama, and I’m based in New York. I’ve been there about 11/12 years now.
CC: Awesome, so what themes inspire your practice?
HH: I would say, my family has been in Appalachia for about 16 generations, like a really long time. With that, there are a lot of questions I think, like, have they been poor the whole time? In that vein, there are a lot of themes of farmland and ecology, and familial rumors. Also mysteries, like this specific brand of like evangelical magic- you know, my great great uncle was like a prophet- that kind of stuff is what I like to call farm magic. A lot of that was really interesting to me, and kind of set me up to be a magical thinker. So, when I’m painting, I’m really compiling a visual story that’s not necessarily a story, not even necessarily a narrative, just something that feels like it could dismantle more about myself. Identity issues are really interesting to me.
CC: So it's sort of self-portraiture in a way as well.
HH: Definitely, yeah, but a lot of the figures are faceless, or like more of a vessel. I don’t want it to be completely inaccessible to people, but I do want it to have a fun, interesting background.
CC: Yeah, I think the colors and the figures you’re using, they feel very fun for sure.
HH: Thank you! I used to be a little bit darker, yeah, and then, I don’t know, I think my own humor has caught up to the work in a way that's interesting.
CC: Are all of these paintings that you’ve done here at Stove Works?
HH: No, that would be a feat! I had to pick up a show that was being dismantled in my hometown. So my mom’s a painter too, so I did a dual show with her. It was so fun.
CC: That sounds really cool.
HH: It was really cool. So I went to pick up the work, and I thought like, I can never just have everyone out and looking at my work since in New York, the studio spaces are so small. SO yeah I thought, why not put them up on the wall. So really, I’ve only been working on this one at Stove Works. I’ll be here for three months, hopefully I’ll make more than that. I think, for me, one of the struggles of a longer residency is a particularly personal struggle right now. I’m having a really cool transition in my life where I can do creative work for my money instead of bartending. But now I have this problem of, like, how do I balance my time? And then how do I shift out of my illustrative style, like editorial illustrations and book covers and that kind of thing, back into my painting. I’m sure you’ve probably noticed that the paintings up on the wall, the older ones, are more painterly and this one has been sort of tight. I think that happened because I’ve been deep in my transition out of just doing illustrations because I haven't had a studio for like a year.
CC: So yeah, the scale really affects how you’re working.
HH: Yeah.
CC: So, what are you planning to work on during your time at Stove Works, do you have a specific body in mind?
HH: I don’t have a specific body in mind, but I have a backlog of little prompts that I write myself that sort of end up being prose poetry. But they’re just little ideas that I write down that represent what I’m thinking visually at the time, and inevitably I forget what it was I was thinking about. Some of them come from dreams or something, and I just use it as a prompt later. So it’s like a cold prompt that I’ve written for myself in a way. So I have a whole lot of those I would like to act upon. I am also working on a graphic novel that’s sort of between the two worlds. My money making (illustration) world, and my practice world. I want to get finished while I'm here. It’s a young adult psychological thriller about cryptids and the South.
CC: I would read that.
HH: Thank you
CC: Is there any of it out?
HH: Yeah, the start of it. I’m publishing it chapter by chapter on global comics. It's an app. It’s really cool. Actually, there’s a lot of garbage, but there’s some cool stuff. It’s like Deviant Art. So, I’ve been publishing it in a scrolling format, just redoing things and adjusting them for a phone screen.
CC: That’s really cool, I mean, that's how a lot of people are looking at art nowadays.
HH: Exactly. It’s so new, you have to think about the rectilinear frame and scrolling. Yeah, an interesting format we live with.
CC: I wonder if it's going to stay like that forever.
HH: Hopefully we’ll switch it up at some point and we’ll have round screens.
CC: Oh my gosh, round screens, I love it.
HH: Just an idea!
CC: I’d like to talk a bit about your new painting. Do you have a title for it?
HH: No not right now. This painting- I had this fixation on researching medieval religious iconographies. Stuff like that is just visually interesting to me, so I like to compile these reference images. I came across these Mary Magdalenes that were covered in hair. So I was reading about it. It’s apparently Mary of Egypt- who was conflated with Mary Magdalene- but she was a hermit in the desert, and her clothes were off, she didn’t care about clothes anymore. Then God protected her purity by like, letting her body grow hair, except for the breast. For some reason. I am really aware she reads like teen Sasquatch right now, which is totally fine. I’m fine with that as well, because I’m already cryptid adjacent.
CC: Very Appalachian.
HH: Exactly, so I’m just leaning into it.
CC: This is a really good painting.
HH: Thank you, I’m most excited about the smiley faces and her stickers.
CC: Thanks for talking to me about your practice! Is there anything you'd like to plug?
HH: Oh, yeah, if you want to check out my graphic novel, Snag, you can read it on Global Comix.
More information on Hannah:
Instagram: @serious_moonlite
Website: hannahhillart.com
Link to graphic novel: https://globalcomix.com/read/251106e7-1cd4-4528-9aa9-d7b41d8b5511/1