About

Hannah Bender (b. 1999 Denver, CO) is a painter, printmaker, and arts educator based in Houston, Texas. Currently, she teaches Silkscreen at the University of Houston and manages the Lanecia A. Rouse Gallery. 

She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Houston where she taught painting and silkscreen as a Graduate Fellow for two years. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Central Arkansas where she served as the President of the Feminist Union and was awarded the President’s Medallion as the Outstanding Student in the College of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She has participated in studio assistantships at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, ME and in Oakland, CA with portrait painter, Taylor Smalls. Hannah has exhibited in Blaffer Art Museum, Elgin Street Studios, Lawndale Art Center, Baum Gallery, and local third-spaces. 

"Layer upon layer, my paintings hold records of movement, an accretion of marks and gestures that are bound by chance and intuition. Each mark is made without strict planning, allowing the process to unfold organically. Pigment is thrown, pooled, smeared, scraped and sprayed as I develop a surface with unpredictable marks, pattern, and texture. The process is physical and performative, engaging my entire body as I react with both intention and instinct.

In conjunction, photographic printing methods are utilized to transfer dark, abstracted images of railcars over top. These images are rough, industrial, and heavy, creating tension between the fluid nature of the painted marks. The surface, usually stretched silk organza, and the use of bright color allude to a feminine impulse, clashing with the harsh, masculine nature of the imagery and media application. Light versus dark, steel versus silk, industrial versus organic—my work explores and disrupts gendered dichotomies, revealing nuanced tensions between these forces."

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