Interview with Artist Hannah Woodman

Hannah Woodman's expressive approach to landscape painting captures the essence of a place, beyond its physical form. Her work exists in the space between abstraction and realism, evoking memory and experience through layered color and expressive mark-making. A trained art historian with a deep appreciation for the sublime, Hannah brings a thoughtful, intuitive approach to her work—one that invites the viewer to step inside and feel the land, rather than just see it.

We are honored to welcome Hannah to Hunter Moon Homestead in September 2025 for her two-day workshop, Landscape and Memory. In this conversation, she shares insights into her process, the role of solitude in creativity, and how landscape painting can become a bridge between past and present.

Tell us a little about how you got started as an artist...

Like most artists that journey started as soon as I could hold a pencil! However, having attended a very traditional school where art was considered more of a hobby than a vocation, I struggled with the freedoms of art college, so I switched to an Art History degree, then moving into museum and gallery education as a career.

I wouldn’t trade this grounding though – learning about so many art movements and epochs gave me a greater confidence to experiment when I returned to painting. 

Do you have any special training or technical experience in the arts?

I took a Foundation Course at Exeter College of Art, then a B.A Hons in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. I followed this with a PGCE teaching qualification in Art & Design and an MA in Museum and Gallery Education at the Institute of Education, London.

I’ve since lectured freelance for galleries such as Tate Britain, the Mall Galleries and the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art as well as teaching Fine Art courses at St Ives School of Painting and the Newlyn School of Art in Cornwall. 

What is your preferred medium, and why?

I work across a range of media so I can’t really pinpoint a favourite. I love the texture and dexterity of oil painting – how you can scrape and layer with great freedom to achieve looseness in the work, but I also love the gentle organic abstractions that watercolours offer, and working in monochrome with graphite drawing allows me to explore negative space in a more considered way. 

Can you talk us through your process of creating a new work? Do you start from sketches or some other inspiration?

Sketching is key to my process. I first need to connect with a place and for some memory or association to be triggered so that I want to depict it. I’ll sketch on location - usually in pencil/graphite or watercolours and gouache for paint studies – then I return to the studio and work them up into painting plans. This process is where most of the analysis happens, it's a challenge to take the initial spontaneous sketch and process it into something more considered that still retains an immediacy of response. 

Which artists are currently influencing your work or what are you turning to for inspiration?

I’ve always loved [J.M.W.] Turner for his sense of the sublime and how he drags a monumental landscape into four corners, but I admire any artist that makes me want to walk into their world. Peter Doig for his curious liminal compositions, Joan Mitchell for her energy between the worlds of realism and abstraction, Anselm Keifer for his absorption into the simultaneously surreal and familiar, Joan Eardley for her mastery of movement and emotion in the landscape, Nicolas de Staël for his reduction of form…. there are so many! Ultimately it all comes back to nature and where I live as the starting point for my inspiration though.

Your work plays with the balance between realism and abstraction–how do you find that balance?

I’m not sure that I ever do! It’s a constant search and the essence of what motivates me to paint. Some days I get nearer to it than others. I’m always particularly disappointed when I feel a piece is too tight or prescriptive, but then I don’t want it to be completely abstract as I want there to be a point of recognition for the viewer.

I’m slowly learning that the human eye needs far less information than we assume to build a recognizable image though. Having said that, there are some days when I enjoy the more Impressionist approach to painting and producing something pleasingly readable.

How do you know when a piece of work is ‘finished’?

This is the artist’s constant dilemma! I think you only know if you walk away and return the next day without wanting to rework it. There’s an awful lot to be said for allowing space between painting periods so that you put work aside and consider it again with fresh eyes.

How does the use of color act as a subject in your work?

Colour is vital for emotional content. I tend towards a more muted palette using points of pure colour to draw the eye and intimate light or objects rather than to prescribe them. Some playful invention can be helpful to combat all the greens and greys of the British countryside, so I try to layer up stronger colours to create depth and to either warm or cool them to reflect the mood of a painting.

What advice would you give someone new to painting who is intimidated to start the process?

A blank canvas is always intimidating. The most important thing is to make a mark every day as building a rhythm in painting is what will help you find your language. I was once asked to exhibit a collection of drawings with no constraints over subject, size, framing or even having to sell the work. This freedom threw me so much I was unable to produce anything meaningful, despite drawing all day and every day.

Eventually, with the deadline looming I took my frustration out on a larger piece that suddenly reflected to me a series of marks worth exploring. Those have been fundamental to the direction I’ve taken ever since, and they only happened by chance. So keep up your regularity of practice because even if you dislike what you’re producing at some point it will develop stylistically with just one stroke.

How does landscape express a sense of place beyond just being an image of what you’re viewing?

A landscape can go beyond a topographical image to being a distillation of memory, emotion and experience. It’s particularly important for expressive landscape painters to tap into this and ask themselves questions as to why they choose to depict a certain place. Does it evoke a buried memory or trigger an association with someone or something?

We rarely make objective choices in painting and part of the creative process is accessing the reasons for what we’re drawn to. For example, I often use a high horizon line in my landscapes, but I only realised relatively recently that this was a result of childhood walks with my father and the enquiring perspective of a small child.

How do you choose what to paint?

Again, it’s connected to memories and emotions. Some sense of longing or familiarity with a place will often come up and capture a long-held feeling that’s difficult to articulate in words. Of course there are certain compositional aspects I always consider - enough variety of forms, horizontals versus verticals etc – but largely it’s an immediate gut response that I don’t always understand, but which painting helps me to process. The fact that I was raised in a region of the UK known for its unspoilt landscapes has certainly helped as that backdrop has fed into my subconscious.

How does finding solitude in nature and experiencing that quiet inspire your work?

It’s incredibly important. I find nature calming, confounding and grounding all at the same time! Sometimes when I walk along the cliffs and look out over an expanse of sea I feel quite insignificant, but at the same time I’m almost reassured by this. The notion that nature continues to evolve and adapt despite us is quite soothing. I feel very strongly that access to nature is crucial for all of us as humans to help minimise the noise of modern living.

In terms of my work, I like it to be immersive and for the viewer to be the sole participant in my landscape, which is why I don’t put another human presence in my paintings. 

Are you currently exhibiting your work?

I’ll next be exhibiting in London at the Mall Galleries for the annual Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours exhibition. It’s a wonderfully diverse organization that explores the potential of all water-based media. I became a member in 2024 and I’m very keen to promote more contemporary approaches to watercolour.

Otherwise I’m constantly updating my website collections to reach my overseas audience!

Any future projects on the horizon you’re excited about?

I’m planning a new collection of work based on the waterways near my home in Devon, South West England. I live near a huge estuary that supports a globally important range of wildlife and habitats. This runs into the English channel and the surrounding Jurassic coastline of red cliffs and beaches is a UNESCO World Heritage site so there’s lots to explore. I hope to exhibit the work in 2026 and draw attention to the biodiversity of the region and the importance of protecting our nature reserves.

Hannah Woodman is a UK-based contemporary landscape painter. Her work occupies the space between abstraction and realism and explores the light, atmosphere and physicality of her surroundings in the South West of England. She studied at Exeter College of Art and Design and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, before training to teach at the London Institute of Education, where she later took an MA in Museums and Galleries in Education.

Hannah is a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and has exhibited extensively, including alongside prestigious British names such as Rose Hilton, Jean Cooke and Howard Hodgkin. She has featured across a range of media including the Sunday Telegraph, Country Life magazine and BBC2’s Rick Stein’s Cornwall series. Her work is now held in private and public collections worldwide.

She'll be teaching a 2 day landscape painting workshop at Hunter Moon Homestead titled Landscape and Memory in September of 2025.