Hannah’s Strange Views at Chichester's Oxmarket Gallery

Hannah Strange is showing her work in a new exhibition running at Chichester’s Oxmarket Gallery from Tuesday, September 8-Sunday, September 20.
Hannah StrangeHannah Strange
Hannah Strange

“You could call my show Hannah’s Strange Views as my paintings relate to different places that have been important to me in some way but also to my interests. But these are not always shown in a straight-forward or simple way.

“I booked the space in the Oxmarket Gallery last September and got busy working out what to show. All was going well and then lockdown happened. COVID has been terrible in so many ways and my worries about what would happen with my booking were nothing compared with what so many other people have had to cope with. So in July it was so good that the death rates were really down and things were returning to being more normal and, for me, that Oxmarket announced its re-opening.

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“It is brilliant to be exhibiting in Chichester; it is a real coming home for me as a returning local. I grew up in Bosham but moved away to study and then work but came back two years ago.

“When choosing what to put in the exhibition, I went for a mixture of subjects and styles but always with a twist. So for example in the painting Flight over the Cathedral, I have taken my love of Chichester and combined this with my visits and volunteering at the Pagham RSPB site. The result is what I imagined it might be like to be a peregrine flying over the city, what the cathedral might look like when the bird stoops down to catch a pigeon or, alternatively, the bird seeing the place below spread out like a tourist information map complete with drawings of the landmarks.

“My paintings are done in acrylic paint with some use of pen. I have recently taken to using the mounts and or the frames as an extension of what is on the canvas. So a landscape of vineyards has its surrounding mount painted with bunches of grapes, a still life of poppy flowers is in a frame painted with poppy seed heads. I work both in a detailed, precise style using the medium like water colour but in other pieces, in a splotchy freer manner with the paint going on as if it were oil. The works are decorative and yet slightly quirky so the exhibition should be pleasing on the eye for visitors whilst also being amusing. As things to buy, they are neither too big or too expensive and just a little bit different.”

Hannah added: “I started painting early on with my artist aunt giving me time and space in her studio hut when I was six. My mother and I would go with her to visit galleries and so art was a natural part of life from then on. However, I didn’t take it further at school and went onto study and then work in biology. Painting was just a spare moment thing until 15 years ago when I got seriously into it, kick-started by one teacher, Richard Box. His philosophy of learning some basic techniques properly and of always being positive in evaluating your own work has stood me in good stead. I have got into art history following up gallery visits with courses. Here in Chichester we are lucky to have the excellent courses run by Pallant House Gallery as well as the lectures of the Art Society.

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“A sense of place gets embedded from an early age so, for me, remembered bits of holidays in Dorset as a child, sailing and living near Chichester as a teenager and then later stays in France and Italy, come bubbling up as influences.

“My paintings of these places are different in that they often bring together two aspects for example a West Wittering landscape has a figure of child making sandcastles superimposed on it. Figure drawing used to terrify me but various life drawing sessions have calmed me down and I now just get on with it. An architectural style version of the cathedral appears as a graffiti image on the bricks of a Chichester Georgian house. In Winter Draws Back, a Dorset Hill in spring is seen as if through curtains but the curtains show a continuation of the hill but in winter.”