Hannah Buddle is a visual artist in Swansea. Working mainly in paint - with occasional bouts of printmaking - she focuses on figures as a way of exploring the strange reality of being human. She is currently wrestling with the infinite versatility of oil paints by learning painting techniques from different eras of history, as well as through the playfulness of trial and error.

When portraying others, she seeks to paint portraits that go beyond external representation. Working collaboratively with her sitters, she includes personal symbolism along with her own library of references from art history and beyond. If a viewer walks away wishing they knew the subject better, she feels she has succeeded. In a world which desperately needs more empathy and understanding, she hopes her portraits inspire viewers to recognise the joy in human diversity.

Hannah explores her own experience of being human through self-portraiture, seeking to make sense of the many challenges she finds in the wild ride of existence. She develops work through an intuitive method where images often form spontaneously, asking to be painted, and then reveal their meaning through the process of creation. Unafraid to share intimate references from her life, she hopes to show the strength that can be found in vulnerability.

In her broader life, Hannah has a long involvement in the co-operative movement. As a queer woman, she understands the importance of chosen family and community bonds. While becoming increasingly disabled by a genetic condition, the vital nature of mutual aid and art as a way of living beyond the body are themes she hopes to express more in her work.

Recently Hannah has been exploring landscape as a way of broadening her repertoire of markmaking. She hopes to bring these looser movements back into her figurative work.