Hannah Finnan

Artist Statement:

In my paintings, I want my audience to consider the bizarreness of the American West as a metaphor for navigating America as an outsider. The narratives in my “ weird west”  landscapes are inspired by my own story but are changed enough for viewers to relate to. The figures in my painting allow me to appropriate imagery and ephemera from American & International pop culture to create a surreal universe with which to tell a story. My autobiographical landscapes of the “weird west” obscure the personal in order to present the universal. 

The sci-fi found in the “weird west” combined with the ephemera from the cultures I come from creates a confusion within my work. This confusion is a cultural confusion and pushes the absurdity of finding one’s way in an eternally strange place. I am interested in the process of enculturation and to what extent I participate in or reject this social phenomenon. In taking inspiration from a multitude of avenues, I piece together a body of work which entails the journey I’m on as a child of immigrants navigating America. 

My upbringing and current life is bizarre, so naturally my paintings have to be bizarre. That bizarreness is a better reflection of my experience than a literal retelling of my story. The tragic and comic are parts of socialization in another country so naturally I am interested in inept aliens bumping around their new land and scaring cattle. Just as a person choosing to come to a new country chooses their home, I have chosen mine in the American West. In choosing my own path, I open myself up to the intricacies and absurdities of a new society and even though enculturation is not my story just as my paintings are not my story, I tell this tale in earnest.

Artist Bio:

Hannah Finnan ( b. 2002, St.Louis, Missouri ) is a Kansas City based painter, American-West enthusiast, goth-metal lover and recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, and has accepted a position at Studios Inc as their exhibitions coordinator. During her study at KCAI, her work focused on a combination of painting, glass and the occasional sculpture to relate the experience of enculturation to a larger audience. Her work stems from her upbringing as a first-generation child of immigrant parents and she obscures the personal in order to present the universal. Hannah wants her audience to consider the bizarreness of the American West as a metaphor for navigating America as an outsider. She is the recipient of the St.Louis Artist’s Guild Frani Weinstock Scholarship, the Lead Bank Emerging Artist Prize and the KCAI Painting Department’s Thomas Hart Benton Award and has exhibited in both Kansas City and St.Louis.