Hanna Shim

Hanna Shim is a Korean New Zealand artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau whose craft-based practice draws on the process of play. Known for her textile sculptures, the primacy of the handmade, with its connection to childhood and wonder, are recurring threads running throughout Shim’s varied practice.

Shim’s work has most recently taken the form of large-scale soft sculpture — objects made using pliable materials such as cloth. In the past, Shim was drawn to materials like watercolour paint and clay for their availability and ability to immediately convey an idea. Regarding her earlier work she says, “I used to play with accessible and traditional art mediums such as clay and pencil drawing – which can instantly depict the rawer form of thoughts and ideas with my bare hands.”

Whilst seemingly cute and playful, there is a knowing sense of contradiction in much of Shim’s work. Writing about her 2016 exhibition Headless, Shim articulates this dichotomy in her practice:

My work contains a lack of identity and ambivalent characteristics, and it suggests the in-between status of kitsch and art, cute and cruel. It is to create a space between laughter and discomfort where the viewer’s discomfort can also make them laugh, and viewers become confused about the mixed feelings. I think that is what makes some of the best art.

Commissioned to create work for the 2018 Satellites project The Claw, Shim made 100 wide-eyed soft toys for a giant arcade game occupying an empty shop in Northcote Town Centre. Created in collaboration with Micheal McCabe, Adam Ben-Dror and Amelia Murray (Fazerdaze), The Claw was a joyful and enlivening project for passersby to enjoy amid ongoing intensification and redevelopment in the suburb.

In 2021, a prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty spread throughout Aotearoa due to COVID-19 restrictions and Shim’s exhibition at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space in Pōneke was rescheduled due to an extended lockdown. Within this context Wishing you well (2022) appeared as an antidote to widespread feelings of anxiety, when it was finally able to open. With an installation reminiscent of a child-like tableau, Shim created a carefree sense of wonder in a space where such gestures are not usually expected. Pliable flowers and ladybugs surrounded a four-metre-long reclining naked female figure lying serenely on a hand-tufted ‘grass’ carpet, which viewers were invited to lie with at the opening. At once playful and earnest, Shim’s gentle subversions of the white-walled gallery space elicit questions around motherhood and our relationship to Mother Nature.

Shim received her master's from the University of Auckland, Elam School of Fine Arts, in 2016. Shim has exhibited widely throughout Aotearoa and in 2022 was commissioned to create work for Heart of the City. In 2019, her Anti Anti Asian mask was acquired by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Hanna Shim's website

Whitespace artist page

Review of SMER SMER (스멀스멀) by Andrew Paul Wood

2022 – Wishing You Well, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Pōneke

2022 – Underbelly, Te Komititanga Square, Tāmaki Makaurau

2021 – Mother Mother, Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional Park, Tāmaki Makaurau

2019 – Bone Like This, Whitespace Contemporary Art, Tāmaki Makaurau

2019 – Bridegroom for Miss Mouse, Auckland ArtWeek, Ellen Melville Centre, Tāmaki Makaurau, part of Nori 놀이

2020 – Mushroom Room, Private window space, Grey Lynn, Tāmaki Makaurau

2019 – Smer Smer 스멀스멀, Aigantighe Gallery, Timaru

2018 – Smer Smer 스멀스멀, Nathan Homestead, Tāmaki Makaurau

2018 – The Claw, Satellites event, Northcote Town Centre, Tāmaki Makaurau

2017 – Lost in a Forest, Whitespace Contemporary Art, Tāmaki Makaurau

2016 – Headless, Whitespace Contemporary Art, Tāmaki Makaurau

2020 — Wallace Art Awards: People’s Choice Award

2018 — Best Design Awards: Gold Pin — Exhibition & Temporary Structures (The Claw)