Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah McConaughy.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I have always been a different thinker. I see things in colors that most people don’t see and it seems like my whole life I’ve operated on some sort of wavelength that others around me don’t understand. I come from a family of scientific geniuses and I never truly fit in with most of my siblings I grew up with. For a long time, I thought I was inadequate because my brain did not work the way theirs did. However, in college, I discovered I was created to be an artist and that it had just been misplaced energy and thinking my entire life. Ways I was different and struggled growing up began to flourish when I began to make art.
I was first traditionally trained as an oil painter in fine arts at the University of Mary Washington for undergraduate study. My junior year of art school, I took a sculpture class with a professor that completely challenged my thinking on art and what I thought art to be. This led to a breakthrough that changed everything about who I am as an artist today. I graduated university with a painterly perspective on performance art.
The past couple years I have been doing several performance piece studies exploring the breakthrough I experienced my last years of school. I am incredibly fascinated with color theory; how the colors I see and create interact and affect those around me and vice versa.
More recently, my performance studies have become sort of social experiments exploring mental illness, challenging cultural and social norms and what it means to live free and whole. Surfing, contemporary dance, yoga, poetry, watercolor, pen and ink, and fashion are currently where I am spending my time mentally and physically as a creative.
Please tell us about your art.
I am a living, breathing, totally alive performance piece.
Events, decisions, interactions, and actions take place that make up life.
I am fully emerged in these things, yet not really at the same time.
Practically this involves surfing retro style single fin surfboards, pen and ink drawings, watercolor paintings, interpretive contemporary dance, and style of dress.
I create a space that allows freedom to flourish and to inspire others in the process.
This comes out of a place of overcoming mental illness and deep self-hatred.
As a now-healed individual, I hope to release that same healing through the art I create.
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
For other artists:
Any fears you face,
Any confines and restrictions you place on yourself…
They are not real.
These things are just noodles, that feel like chains.
So put people around you that are creatives that push you to help you discover your true self.
As you grow as an artist, have a core of people that constantly remind you who you are and why you make the art you create. Never be too scared to face unknown things. In fact, we have to as creatives.
It is very cliche, but nothing is impossible as a creative.
Know you have an obligation to yourself and to the world to make art. You have to. Don’t ever stop making.
I think I wish I had learned earlier that the way my brain works and the way I see the world is beautiful and special. So to all artists, your brain is beautiful, and the way you see and experience the world is unique to you and no one else.
Also- as artists, we change the world. All of us must know that and step into that.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Please follow me on instagram!
@hannahmackerz
DM me for a conversation about what I am currently working on, any upcoming shows and events, and any interest in support or networking.
Contact Info:
- Email: hannahmcconaughy@gmail.com
- Instagram: @hannahmackerz
Image Credit:
Gary Johnson (surf shots), Sophia Mladineo (body shot at window and personal photo), and others taken by me
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
