10 Questions with Hannah Kröeker

Hannah Kröeker is a multi-media artist and collagist residing in Manitoba, Canada. She created her first collage over twenty years ago in an elective art course. Since then, she has experimented with several art forms, such as painting, installation, fashion, design, poetry, and photography. Kröeker primarily showcases her prolific work to the world in a hand-cut analog collage. Over the last decade, she has included the use of Washi Tape, transparencies, written text, and other mediums to add to the dynamics of her pieces and create more visually provocative manifestations of her imagination. Kröeker works full-time in psychiatry as a mental health nurse in both hospital and community settings. She has spent much of her ten years of academia studying biology and behavioural science with a minoring degree in English literature and is passionate about the intersect between the so-called ‘arts’ and the ‘sciences’”.

@hannahelouise

ARTIST STATEMENT

“Expressing my inner layers through art is not simply a recreation but a way of life. I like to think that I am receiving wisdom from my ancestors when I create; at times, I feel overpowered by the need to communicate in pictures. My sources of inspiration include:

Studies in texture and fabric as it relates not only to fashion but also to the dressing and undressing of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects,
The fascination with scale in the natural world (extreme smallness to extreme massiveness),
A sense of multiplicity and infiniteness in the various combinations of the imagery and words I use. Mathematics as a whole; probabilities and improbabilities.

My studies of the human brain and psychiatry also inform my work. I admire the mystery yet predictability and organic artistry of human emotion and the human body in wellness and illness. What an honour it is to have a body with emotion that can be transformed into art. I consistently feel as though I am speaking and arranging powerful emotions through the movement and specific positioning of the selected images. It really is like a language, a spirituality – my art speaks.” - Hannah Kröeker

Genus, Paper Collage, 8.5x11 cm, 2022 © Hannah Kröeker

INTERVIEW

First of all, let’s talk a bit about yourself. How did you get interested in art? And what inspired you to follow this career path?

I truly feel that I was born with the mind of an artist. My tendency to gravitate toward the obscure and abstract started at an early age. The first metaphorical poem I wrote was when I was six years old. I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged my artistic expression throughout my early years. Over the last decade, I have developed my artistry into a vocation. I was inspired to start exposing my art as I started to recognize, largely by observing other collagists whom I’d come to admire, that my art speaks to a diverse audience.

You work with collage, and, as you mention in your biography, you first approached this medium over 20 years ago. Do you remember what inspired you to experiment with collage specifically?

When I was in my first year of junior high, my art teacher dropped a heavy stack of National Geographics on my table. Most of the other students were working on landscape water colours - but he could tell I was not interested in this. I remember feeling liberated by the idea that I could communicate with images without needing to draw or paint. This particular teacher was not strict or “by the book” in his teaching methods, and that helped me a lot to discover collaging and fully express myself, even if the final product was unusual.

And what did you like so much about this medium that made you decide to turn it into your primary artistic outlet?

There are many reasons why collage became my primary medium of choice. It is spontaneous, abstract, creative, personal, dynamic, and shameless. The assembly of images allows my mind to work with my emotions in real-time. First there is selection, followed by cutting, followed by placing. Positioning the cut images is unique in that I am driven by this sort of emotional itch that needs scratching. Sometimes, even a slight movement of a piece will create a dissonance, and I need to move it in order to resolve that dissonance. There is a subconscious element to it - I can’t really explain how I place the images except for that it is a feeling. I must be feeling something in order to accurately and abstractly illustrate the needs of my imagination. It is a very moving experience for me.

Do you follow the same aspirations today? Or do you find that your work has shifted and evolved while still using the same medium?

My work has certainly evolved, though the same aspirations remain as a foundation or the origin of my art. I create for myself as a means to feed the hunger of my imagination and to communicate in pictures, but the specific manner in which I do so has changed. I find that I can shift between styles (for example, minimalist vs maximalist), but my art will still have some element of my style in it.

Mortal, Paper Collage, 9x12 cm, 2019 © Hannah Kröeker

Speaking of the medium, tell us more about your creative process. You use images but also Washi tape, texts, and other elements. How do you choose and mix them? Do you have any rules or specific procedures?

For all of my work, I more or less use the same process. I go to a local thrift store and listen to music while going through the books that have many pictures. Books or magazines that I tend to select are ones with miscellaneous objects, pictures of curtains, fabric, landscapes, people, and architecture. I then flip through the stack and tear out pages that have images that I’m drawn to or that are in tune with what I am feeling at the time. After collecting a moderate stack - usually around twenty-five to fifty pages, I cut out the images. When I have my images cut out, it creates what I call my ‘palette’, which is what I take from to lay out my pieces. I typically work on multiple collages at once; if I see images that seem to attract one another, I will pair them off and continue to search for pieces to layer with the others. Washi tape adds another element of spontaneity, which then allows me to create in three dimensions and moving pieces. The entire process is completely intuitive; there are no rules. It is very much a process of being guided by what the art wants to say, if that makes sense. I get in the zone and am totally immersed, which leads to interesting discoveries later on when looking at the fished collages.

Speaking of your work, what is your ultimate goal? And what messages would you like to convey?

My ultimate goal is to continue to use my art to create meaning and make sense of my world and the emotions that result from my environment. I always create art for myself. Not in a selfish way - of course, I want others to be able to enjoy. However, I can only be a genuine artist by creating for myself first. This is because my art originates from an internal place, and my internal state guides what images inspire me.
That being said, I think that any messages conveyed in the work that I do should be dependent on the viewer, how it makes them feel, and what they notice. My art is built to inspire. Sometimes, I will look at my own work and notice things that I didn’t notice before that will strike something in me.

Confess, Paper Collage, 8.5x11 cm, 2015 © Hannah Kröeker

Over the years, you have experimented with different mediums, including painting, installation, fashion, design, poetry, and photography. Is there anything else you would like to experiment with?

Performance art is an interest of mine; I would love to experiment with this as an artistic medium. I have so many ideas - for film and for performance - that I think would translate beautifully if I had the skill to create it according to my thoughts. It is interesting how a person can be limited by skill in order to access their vision. Speaking of this, I am also interested in collaborative art. I would like to be involved in more projects alongside designers, musicians, tattoo artists, filmmakers, photographers, and other collagists etc. to create more artistic narratives. A huge element of creating art, I think, is the ability to grow and have several minds come together, whether this be one creator and multiple viewers or multiple creators and few viewers. In all ways, there is some type of collaboration, so to speak. I would like to make this a part of the process - to involve other artists, other minds.

What do you think of the recent use of AI-generated art? Do you plan to embrace this trend, or would you like to stick to more analog processes?

I think AI is a fascinating way to spark an artist’s flame. In this sense, it would be like connecting my brain to a computer, plugging in my ideas and visions, and seeing what happens. Lately, I have been delving more into digital collage and experimenting with mirroring images, superimposition, editing of colors, and the addition of images that wouldn’t otherwise be available in a book. For example, I recently took up-close photos of images while in the bathtub and created an abstract collage with the digitally manipulated pieces and titled it “Bath”. Experimentation is also a huge part of my growth as an artist. I am constantly writing down new collage ideas of what to explore, such as the use of wallpaper or wrapping paper or even collaging with existing collages. I tend to be timid in plenty of areas of my life - except for this art form or any art form that involves taking existing subjects or objects and combining them to make a new, never-before-seen illustration, whether it be analog or digital. Collage is everywhere - even in getting dressed in the morning. Assembly of moving parts to manifest a particular vision.

Kept, Paper Collage, 11x14 cm, 2021 © Hannah Kröeker

Speaking of future projects, do you have any new series or exhibitions coming up? And lastly, what are your plans for the new year, 2024?

My plans for this year are mostly to share my art with a broader, international audience. The city I live in is small and has long, frigid winters. This allows for plenty of time to slow down and be in my element. I also recently gave birth, and so I’m curious to see how my daughter will alter my perspective and musings for the new year. She loves looking through my portfolios. Though I don’t have any upcoming exhibitions, my interest in combining poetry with collage has resurfaced lately, and I have plans to create a collage and poetry book to be published and launched. Word collage has become a passion of mine. I find it exciting and reflective to be able to articulate using words collected from multiple sources. Fragmented words cut out, scattered, and slowly placed together in a unique harmony is so healing. Often, I will be able to say things in a way I’d never thought possible. Combining this with visual collage is something I’d like to experience and would want others to experience as well. It truly is an honour to be able to use my imagination to make new artworks come into fresh existence as a representation of a meaningful moment in time. Artworks that will continue to exist for years into the future.

Artist’s Talk

Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.

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