RACHEL HANNAN
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Rachel Hannan (b. 1971, Newcastle Beach, NSW) graduated with High Distinction in Painting from Newcastle University in 1992. She built a parallel career as a jazz vocalist, recording artist, and vocal teacher.
Hannan’s work is rooted in an enduring, wordless dialogue with landscape—its stillness and tearing winds, shifting light, and the gap between perception and reality. Passion, unpredictability, life, and death converge in forms that resist capture yet demand pursuit. She grew up immersed in ocean and horse riding in the bush, art and music. In 1994, drawn to the Blue Mountains’ endless blue horizons, she made the region home for 27 years, its 1000-metre elevation framing ocean to the east and reddening plains to the west. She seeks out vastness and intimacy—cliffs, plains, storms—translating their rhythm and tension into layered, painterly strokes. Music and painting are inseparable. With over 35 years as a professional singer, Hannan hears melody in colour and form, rhythm in natural architecture, and improvisation flows from voice to brush.
After moving to country west of the Blue Mountains, surrounded by those monumental cliffs she once perched upon, she had a near-fatal horse-riding accident in October 2024. After months in hospital fighting for life and limb, her shattered mobility reshaped her style, method and imagery. Exploring mortality, loss, and growth, her lifelong affinity for the number three manifests in 3x3 grids: deliberate imbalances of colour and shape are resolved through overlapping layers, revealing friction, connection, and the unseen beneath the surface.
Hannan exhibits regularly at Day Gallery, Blackheath.​
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EXHIBITIONS and PRIZES
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2025: Group “Abstract Assemblies” Wayout Artspace, Kandos NSW, satellite exhibition of the 8th International Biennale of Non Objective Art (BIANO8).
2025: Solo “Lucidity and Obliteration” - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
2024: Solo “Becoming Home” - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
2023: Solo “In My Element” - Purple Noon Gallery, Freemans Reach, NSW
2023: Solo “Right at Home” - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
2022: Solo “Cliffs and Dancing Wildflowers” -Purple Noon Gallery, Freemans Reach, NSW
2022: Solo “Blooms and Bedrock” - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
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2021: Lethbridge Small Scale Works, Finalist - Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Queensland
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2021: Solo “On the Edge” - Purple Noon Gallery, Freeman’s Reach, NSW
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2021: Solo “The Big and the Small of It” - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW link
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2019: Solo "Inside Outside Upside Down" - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
2019: Naked and Nude Art Prize, Finalist - Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree, NSW
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2019: Blue Mountains Portraits - Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, NSW
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2018: Christmas Works - Floral Ink, Wentworth Falls, NSW
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2018: Group Christmas Show - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
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2018: Solo "Brazen" - Day Gallery, Blackheath, NSW
link to catalogue, link to publication
2018: Fisher's Ghost Art Award, Contemporary Finalist - Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW
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2018: Kangaroo Valley Art Prize, Finalist - Kangaroo Valley, NSW
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2018: Calleen Art Award, Finalist - Cowra Regional Art Gallery, Cowra, NSW
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2017: Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Director's Choice Award, Winner - "Summer Exposure", Springwood, NSW
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2017: Ceramic vessels and wearable - Lyttleton Stores Atelier, Lawson, NSW
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2017: Little Things Art Prize, Finalist - Saint Cloche Gallery, Paddington, NSW
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2017: Group Show - Emma's Cottage Vineyard, Lovedale, NSW
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2017: Solo: “Wild Thing” - Braemar Gallery, Springwood, NSW
2016: “Perlucere” 2 person show - Virgin Walls, Blackheath NSW
2011: Solo: “Warp and Weft” - Art Systems Wickham, Newcastle NSW
2011: Solo: “Layers and Abstraction” - Number 47, Rylstone NSW
2011: “Group Show” - Hathill Gallery, Blackheath NSW
2010: “Double Vision” 2 person show - Hathill Gallery, Blackheath NSW
1992: “Watt Decade” Group Show - Watt Space, Newcastle NSW
1992: Graduate Show University of Newcastle, Newcastle NSW