Hannah Kate Absalom (b.1998) is originally from Northumberland and has studied Fine Art BA (Hons) at The Glasgow School of Art (2016-20) and an MAFA at Central Saint Martins (2022-24). Absalom continues to be based in London.
Absalom’s practice utilises the uncanny and grotesque to investigate the intersections of religious iconography, horror and queerness. Through the mediums of oil-painting, printmaking, moving-image and installation, the artist blends the sacred and the otherworldly, lending from the camp and overly-saturated graphics of classic horror and Sci-Fi. Absalom approaches the flesh as a site of bodily horror, comedic relief and intimacy.
The term Gesamtkunstwerk informs Absalom’s process as they do not intend to make works independent of one another, but rather, through an act of fictioning, to create spaces, sites of ritual and mysticism in which artworks and their means of display melt off the gallery walls and become semi-sculptural, installational works within theatrical and cinematic sets. Within surreal, fictional worlds, characters and motifs drift from one work to another, like the merging and blurring boundaries of narratives and imagery within dreams. Absalom queers landscapes and characters to concoct an image both camp and macabre; the imagery used can often be unsettling, disturbing and hypnotic in its blending of dream and dogma.
Absalom is also part of two film and performance collectives; the artist duo FLESH TIDE GHOST (Hannah Kate Absalom and Meejaah Douglas) and Phlambards Productions.
ARTIST STATEMENT / EXHIBITIONS
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:
(2024)
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:
(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.
(2018-2019)
Erasmus Exchange, The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel.
OTHER:
(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.