Rock Hard

Hannah Harkes’ solo exhibition
GÜ Gallery, ARS Art Factory, Tallinn, Pärnu mnt 154
7th – 18th of October 2024, open Monday – Friday, 12:00 – 18:00

Sometimes our bodies lead us to unexpected places. New aches in the artist’s matrescent* body, worse whenever printing, were eventually diagnosed as scoliosis. The doctor prescribed lifelong daily exercises, to manage the pain. The artist’s body led her away from the treasured printing press that she’d stood behind for eight years, and walked her into an uncharted gym membership.

“Rock Hard” is a visit to the gym and a parallel visit to the worms at the bottom of the garden. The exhibition invites us to consider our strengths and weaknesses from different perspectives. Lift up the hard, cold, heavy rock and find the worm, small and wriggling, a thousand times stronger than a human! Up close, we celebrate the sweat, the mud, and the common or garden beauty behind each of our daily efforts.

The new prints-paintings created for this exhibition have been made by combining the contrasting qualities of linocut printmaking with oil and acrylic painting. This is the first exhibition in which the artist presents her combination method, developed over the course of a year and supported by an ongoing dialogue with curator and painter Craigie Harper. Some of the exhibited works are unique and some are editions, that is to say, repetitions – sets of ten. During the making of this exhibition, the artist’s muscle mass increased by 2% of her body composition.

*Matrescence: the period following the onset of becoming a mother

Thank you: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, The Estonian Artists’ Association Support for Creative Activity, Association of Estonian Printmakers, Craigie Harper, Liis Tedre, Villem Jahu, Salome Jahu, Fiona Barnes, Nestor Ljutjuk, Katrin Kreutzberg, Bronec Jaani

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The exhibition contains 175 original artworks, all of which combine painting with printmaking on canvas. Some are unique, one-off works, some are variable editions that combine editioned printmaking with unique, painted layers, and some are editions of up to 10.