Hannah Kate Absalom (b.1998, Northumberland, based in London) is a multidisciplinary artist, predominantly working with painting, installation and text. Absalom holds an MAFA from Central Saint Martins (2022-24) and a Fine Art BA(Hons) from The Glasgow School of Art (2016-20).
ARTIST STATEMENT / EXHIBITIONS
The cannibalistic regurgitation of autofictional memories and narratives lies at the heart of Absalom’s practice. Text, painting, sculpture and moving-image are reprocessed and churned back into one another; sites and figures of worship, sex, grief and the in-between find themselves oozing and seeping from film, to painting, reaching for the intersection of ritual, horror and queerness.
Following the concept of Gersamtkunstwerk, the artist creates installational sites of ritual and mysticism which activate multiple senses. Blending the sacred and the otherworldly, Absalom approaches the flesh as a site of bodily horror and intimacy. The artist’s current body of work (2023-cont.) The New and Old Order of Newlyth Sacellum amalgams coastal folklore with a self-made queer utopia, coupling concrete, chains and wet pink.
Notable exhibitions include; A Year Spent Grieving (Hypha, London), But We Could Be Dining Anywhere, (Farsight Gallery, London), METAHORROR (The Good Rice, London), Dinner with the Phlambards (Riposte, Electrowerkz, London), and Wunderkammer (Transmission Gallery, Glasgow). In 2025 Absalom was awarded both the Pink Collar Gallery commission and culminating exhibition and the Working Class Creatives Database x Acrylicize residency and exhibition. In 2024 Absalom was the recipient of the Cass Art Graduate Award and the Mona Hatoum Foundation Bursary. Alongside their individual practice, Absalom also works within the artist collective This Cruel Temple.
SOLO SHOWS:
(2022)
/ MIASMA /, WASPS South Block, Glasgow, UK.
/ HYPNAGOGIA /, Tchai Ovna, Glasgow, UK
(2019)
/ IN A DRY AND WEARY LAND, WHERE THERE IS NO WATER / Imbala Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel.
GROUP SHOWS:
(2025)
Auto Amor - The Art House, London, UK
Collective Pulse - Hills Art Centre, Sunderland, UK
A Year Spent Grieving - This Cruel Temple, Hypha HQ, London, UK
METAHORROR - This Cruel Temple, The Good Rice Gallery, London, UK
(2024)
But We Could Be Dining Anywhere - This Cruel Temple, Farsight Gallery, London, UK
Queer Time - Outsiders Gallery, London, UK
Tribute - Safehouse, London, UK
This Cruel Temple - Central Saint Martins MA Degree Show, London, UK.
The Phlambards Dine at Riposte - Riposte, Electrowerkz, London, UK.
For the Sick and the Poor - Hypermedia Events x Fourth Portal, St Andrew's Church, Gravesend, UK.
Unravel - Granary Square, London, UK.
Practice Event II - 9-15 Elthorne Road, London, UK.
Dinner with the Phlambards - 9-15 Elthorne Road, London, UK.
Doozy - Cafe Strangebrew, Bristol, UK.
Where You From - Peckham Safehouse, London, UK.
RUPTURE AND SPEW SOME ROTTEN THING THAT LOOKS LIKE YOU - 9-15 Elthorne Road, London, UK.
Practice Event I - 9-15 Elthorne Road, London, UK.
(2023)
From Narrow Lines to Galactic Farts: A Tale of Guts, Pots, Turtles, Maggots and Migraine Whims - Five Years Gallery, London, UK.
/ FLESH, TIDE, GHOST / - 9-15 Elthorne Rd, London, UK.
Into the Abject - The Haggerston, London, UK.
All Things Current Are Found - Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, UK.
How to Prevent an Existential Crisis - GaleriE106, London, UK.
(2022)
Art on a Postcard - Bomb Factory, Soho, London, UK.
Dirty Secrets - Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
(2021)
The Alternative Degree Show - The Briggait, Glasgow, UK.
Aire Place Studios, Leeds, UK.
Open Cut, The Wunderkammer Project - The Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, UK.
(2020)
Across the Sea - New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, UK.
Ten Past Six - Six Foot Gallery, Glasgow, UK.
The Pieces are in Flux - Saltspace Gallery, Glasgow, UK.
(2019)
SOUP - Glue Factory, Glasgow, UK.
Across the Sea - The Pratt Institute, New York, USA.
(2018)
Invisible Threads are the Strongest Ties - Many Studios, Glasgow, UK.
Trust in Lanslation - Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem, Israel.
AWARDS, RESIDENCIES AND EDUCATION:
(2025)
Awarded the lead Pink Collar Gallery commission for the Collective Pulse exhibition.
(2024)
Working Class Creatives Database x Acrylicize Residency
(2022-2024)
The Cass Art Graduate Award, winner, 2024.
Mona Hatoum Foundation Bursary, London, UK.
Distinction MAFA, Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, London, UK
(2016-2020)
First Class BA (Hons) Fine Art, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK.
RUK Scholarship, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK.
OTHER:
(2025)
Offprint - Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, publication Fictional Breakdowns I exhibited.
(2024)
Offprint - Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, publication The New and Old Order of Newlyth Sacellum exhibited.
Selected for and artwork sold with Blue Shop Galleries Works on Paper 6.
(2022)
Interviewed and artwork published in UP Magazine, New York, USA.
(2021)
Films screened at Interlude Film Festival, SWG3 and ISO Design, Glasgow, UK.
(2020)
Films screened at and interviewed by Birkenhead Film Festival, UK.
Artwork published in Penny Thoughts, From Glasgow to Saturn, MASS, and Artists Responding To.