Hannah Bertram is based in Melbourne, where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2003 and a MFA in 2005 at RMIT. In 2003 she was awarded the Siemens Travelling scholarship and in 2008 was AIR at the Gershwin Hotel in New York. She has exhibited in Australia and the United States and is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery in Melbourne.
"An Ordinary Kind of Ornament is a series of oriental carpets which are created from dust and ash. These worthless materials are salvaged from the overlooked remains of life in motion, Dust commonly settles as a patina over our domestic existence gently acknowledging the passing of time, or alternatively is washed away in an illusion of timelessness. Throughout my practise I explore the possibility of preciousness in that which is overlooked and fleeting rather than what is traditionally esteemed, conserved or revered as precious. I use the complex position of Ornament - that simultaneously adds value and is functionally superfluous – to transform banal materials into temporary installations. My work proposes an alternative experience of preciousness in which value is found not in the perpetuity and richness of ornamented objects, but within the subtlety of transient experiences." Hannah Bertram, July 2009
As part of Le Fil (the thread) Hannah will be creating a temporal site-specific installation in Gaffa Gallery, using dust and powdered pigments.
