Local artist Hannah Kirby's new exhibit looks at motherhood, family ties, and the act of creating.
Hanna Kirby's Blue Musings is open at the Offsite Gallery in the MacArthur Center in Norfolk. Kirby is a VCU alum, with several large-scale murals in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, and she currently works as the Director of Operations and Communications for the Hunter House Victorian Museum. The exhibit will run until April 28, 2023.
Artist Statement:
Blue Musings is a series created from my lens of becoming a mother. Despite the abundance of humans who have reproduced, it can feel like a solitary journey, especially when coupled with our shift away from built in villages, and the perfectionism that is fed to us via cultural pathways. The transition into parenthood is a transition of self. A cliche we all are destined to repeat as it happens to us—and we realize it for the first time.
I believe that we can counter this feeling of isolation surrounding the experience of parenting, and especially post-partum depression via connection. This body of work is therapeutic in its creation; the process of cyanotype is less controlled than other forms, and the color is reflective of a period, a season that is intensely present, and then changes. The images used in the pieces are ones that I have collected since my daughter’s birth, and though they are not family I feel a deep connection to them. I see myself in their poses, the way they hold their children and the longing captured in their eyes.
My hope is that this exhibition is also healing in its power of bringing together other parents or caregivers, and creating opportunities for connection around the act of sharing space with tiny humans.
Website: Hanna Kirby
