Hannah Altman (born May 1, 1995) is an American photographer from New Jersey.[1][2] Her artwork explores lineage, memory, ritual, and storytelling. She is known for her use of natural light and incorporating aspects of Jewish culture into her work.[3][4]
Hannah Altman | |
|---|---|
 Altman in 2022 | |
| Born | May 1, 1995 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Hunterdon Central Regional High School Point Park University (BFA) Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA) |
| Occupation | Photographer |
Life
A graduate of Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Altman grew up in the Ringoes section of East Amwell Township, New Jersey.[5] She is Jewish of Ashkenazi descent.[3][6] She started photographing as a child in response to her severe nearsightedness.[7] She graduated from with a BFA in photography from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA in 2017 and an MFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA in 2020.[7]
Career
Since 2015, Altman has made the project Indoor Voices, a series of portraits made with her mother.[8][9]
In 2015, when Altman was a 19-year-old student at Point Park University, she posted the photo series And Everything Nice to her Tumblr page featuring bodily fluids replaced with glitter as a critique of female beauty standards.[10] The project garnered significant media attention, with features including Buzzfeed,[10] Huffington Post,[11] Vanity Fair,[11] and Cosmopolitan.[12][13] She had her first solo show in 2016 at The Lantern Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which explored themes of feminism and community.[14]
In 2018, as an MFA student at Virginia Commonwealth University, she began working on Kavana, a photography project that explores Jewish memory, narrative heirlooms, and image making.[15] Kris Graves Projects published a photobook of this work in 2020,[16] which has been collected by several libraries, including the MoMa, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Harvard University.[17][18][19] Curator Francesca Cesari described her work in 2022 as:
"The powerful aesthetic and the profound, symbolic message her works conveys are a fresh, unexpected narrative that immediately leads to a tale of tradition and contemporary. Her poetic language tells us about the Yiddish diaspora through staged portraits, rituals and symbols that re-elaborate old experiences, deeply rooted in the past yet extremely present. There is a kind of silence that flutters through the pictures, we tend to feel the same respect we have in front of a sacred image and at the same time we recognize the tangible sensuality of bodies, with a focus on the female figures. The wonderful use of light and the simple but effective scenes reveal how the experience of exile contain both grief and resilience, a strong identity with a special code that is still relevant today."[20]
Themes of Jewish ritual and storytelling continue to be central in her work, as demonstrated with recent solo exhibitions exploring these concepts at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon in 2020,[21] Filter Photo Chicago, IL in 2021,[22] and Gallery 263 in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2022.[23]
In 2023, she became the inaugural Blanksteen Artist in Residence at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.[24] She was also named an Aperture Portfolio Prize finalist in 2023.[25]
Solo exhibitions
- 2023 We Will Return to You. Abakus Projects. Boston, MA.[26]
- 2022 With Rifts and Collapses. Gallery 263. Cambridge, MA.[23]
- 2021 A Permanent Home in the Mouth of the Sun. Filter Space. Chicago, IL.[22]
- 2021 A Permanent Home in the Mouth of the Sun. AAP Exhibition Space. Pittsburgh, PA.[27]
- 2020 Kavana. Blue Sky Gallery. Portland, OR.[21]
- 2018 Construct of Viewpoint. Union Hall Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA.[28]
- 2017 Construct of Viewpoint. Junior High Gallery. Los Angeles, CA.
- 2017 Humanism. The Temple Judea Museum. Elkins Park, PA.
- 2016 Luminous / Weightless. Lantern Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA.[14]
- 2016 Intimate Threat, with Josh Escoto. Curated by Krista Wright. Trust Arts Education Center. Pittsburgh, PA.