Art and Heritage Online Database

Object Type: painting
Artist/Maker: Cutt, Hannah
Place Made: Gray's School of Art
Date: 2022
Media/Materials: Oil, coloured pencil and soft pastel on canvas
Dimensions: overall: 26 cm x 21 cm
Awards: RGU Drawing and Painting Purchase Award
Classification: Painting

Description:

Features a glass of water under an orange sun, with a cluster of teeth resting at the bottom of the glass. The background shows an abstracted representation of foliage.

Artist Statement

My practice involves creating a metaphorical but also autobiographical account of my past, exploring themes such as childhood, memory and hauntology, portraying a sickly and unsettling nostalgic narrative.

Transforming poetry into paintings, each work acts as a capsule, holding a multitude of various events and experiences. Truth is skewed by the layering of motifs and metaphors, condensing years of my life into a singular image, granting me the ability to take something so innately private and vulnerable, and make it public. With the ideas stemming from pivotal moments from my childhood, I strike up a conversation with my past self, exploring the conflicted relationship I have with my inner child, disguising difficult topics with soft colours and repeated metaphorical motifs.


Ritual

This painting originated from the widely believed idea that if you dream of your teeth falling out, it is a warning that there is a big change about to take place in your life. I also looked at the loss of your baby teeth as you grew older. The teeth falling out symbolising this bridge between childhood and adulthood, and all of the life changes and experiences that come with it. Looking at the preservation of teeth in milk, I explored the desire to preserve one’s childhood. This desperate attempt to cling onto your youth, as your teeth one by one fall out of your mouth. Performing this ritual of placing your teeth in a glass of milk, hoping that you can hold onto your childhood, but all that happens is that the milk begins to sour the longer it is left, and the damning realisation that what was, is now lost to the cruelty of time.

Object Number: ABDRG2022.19