LACUNA has become a powerful tool to process some of the most important experiences of Hannah Nowlan’s life. In these works, Hannah has embarked on examining themes of grief, death, loss, and powerlessness, as well as birth, search and escape. She has developed a uniquely primitive language through her paintings that speak directly of person and place. The paintings within this collection employ gaping expanses of colour in an attempt to create vast atmospheres and fields of consciousness that one can lose themselves within.

The definition of the word, LACUNA’, references intellectual and physical gaps, cavities and missing links. On the cusp, ‘LACUNA’, sounds like a resort or a paradise-like oasis where one might escape. It is all of this and more. LACUNA’ as a title is bound by loss yet broad in scope. This show holds a sense of presence, warmth in substance yet vast and deserted. At its essence, LACUNA is what fills us or consumes us after loss, after life.

This body of work visits an afterlife of sorts, emulating that of the night sky and atmosphere as a metaphor for the unknown and our cavity of understanding. Like a motionless pause or limbo, these works give space for breath, respite and slumber. Serendipitously the rare lunar display of a ‘Super Blue Blood Moon’ played an integral role in shaping this body of work. This exhibition bestows themes of heaven and hell, deep seas, dark skies, infernos and blood moons. With an alluring yet vague awareness in the dark, each artwork uncovers the shadow eclipsed by light.