From the Collection: Hannah Ireland

Elusive, slippery, ambiguous and ethereal – they’re all words used to describe the distinctive portraiture of Hannah Ireland (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi).

A contemporary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Hannah is perhaps best known for her portraits that are reverse painted onto the glass of recycled window frames. Often the figures in these paintings are abstracted and unnamed, seeming to bridge the gap between ephemerality and form.

In her more recent bodies of work, however, the Elam School of Fine Arts alumna has employed canvases that have been cut and stitched back together. Their subjects incorporate figures and fragments of personal memories that take a more definable shape than her earlier works.

The striking double portrait, ‘Tethered to You’ (2024), captures this turn in the artist’s practice and has recently been acquired as part of the University of Auckland Art Collection.

‘Tethered to You’ was first exhibited as part of a commissioned body of work created for the first Aotearoa Contemporary (2024) at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Sponsored by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Aotearoa Contemporary will occur every three years, aiming to showcase current creative practices and emerging artistic voices. The 2024 iteration featured 27 artists, including Hannah, who presented a total of 22 projects across a range of mediums.

Hannah’s series of five paintings for the exhibition was born following a return to her childhood home in East Auckland. The works evoke quiet and imagined scenes from her family’s everyday life.

The exhibition text describes the series as ‘a metaphorical marae, a kāinga, a home’, through which the audience gains a glimpse of Hannah’s personal life and memory. The two seem embedded in their compositions, with the subjects painted from photographs taken over different times. Much like their canvases, which have been separated and re-stitched together, the paintings’ subjects have been composed from disparate yet recognisable fragments.

‘Tethered to You’ depicts a loose rendition of Hannah’s sister, whose head is turned to gaze out from the canvas through eyes that are not quite defined. She, alongside the unnamed figure at her side, are enfolded in forms evocative of korowai. A whimsical koru is in place of the head and facial features of the second figure, representing the continued presence of tūpuna.

In an interview with The Art Paper, Hannah described how this koru form made its way into the body of work as she reconsidered her place as a Māori artist. “Up until this point, I think I somewhat shied away from using symbols, imagery or visual language that is recognisably Māori. I allowed myself the safe space to integrate and use the koru as an apt symbol to ground whakapapa. For myself, the koru speaks to those who have come before and stands for those who will come after; past, present, future.”

‘Tethered to You’ is one of several artworks from the collection on loan for an external exhibition this year. The painting is included in Fell into Me: Hannah Ireland, a survey exhibition curated by Janine Parkinson at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. The exhibition runs until December 2025, after which ‘Tethered to You’ will find a permanent home on campus.

Madeleine Gifford, art collection adviser