Portalis by Hannah Nowlan is a series of 15 richly textured artworks first conceptualised during the devastating bushfires during the summer of 2020 and built upon during the onset of the pandemic.

Looking on, feeling helpless, the artist found symbolic meaning in a Hermit shell on the shores of Ricketts Point in Victoria. A metaphor of withdrawal and retreat, the shell became a sentiment of our sheltered interiors, of hibernation, where we would return within to survive.

Checkered and spiralling, these psychedelic portals draw you to their core, representing an entry into a new world as much as a passageway to regeneration.

Read the full editorial on The Design Files.