Bio
Hannah Marshall is a Boston-based artist working primarily with handmade paper. She was born and raised in Eastern Connecticut with two sisters. Her dad is devoutly Catholic and was ordained a deacon when Hannah was eleven years old. His ordination process gave Hannah a behind-the-scenes view into the Catholic Church: she saw the church before the lights were on, before the decorations were up, before the candles were lit. The church became more like a home and less like a sacred, mystical space. This experience coupled with her mom not being Catholic allowed her to see the church as permeable; as something that can be learned, negotiated, and left. She holds multiple relationships to the church: an insider with special access to the church that most Catholics don’t have, a good Catholic, and a non-Catholic. She has always known that The Catholic Church can exist without all its decadence, a real person can acquire a position of power, and that not all people are Catholic. This half-Catholic upbringing greatly impacted her life and work as an artist. She is interested in articulating and illustrating feminine power.
Statement
My work interrogates the contemporary Catholic Church and its teachings on sex and gender as manifested in the Virgin Mary. I am discovering Mary as a god, a real person, a negotiated space, and as a weaponized symbol. Mary’s body is physically present in the daily lives of many Catholics, but is not represented in the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church. Quite simply, there are no women with power in the church’s hierarchy; according to church teaching, the ultimate vocation for a Catholic woman is to raise a Catholic family.
This body of work deals with the discrepancy of Mary in the Catholic Church; what happens to someone when they are simultaneously present and absent? I am looking at Mary as a real person—as myself. What happens when Mary’s hands become my own hands, and my hands become Mary’s hands? The large, tapestry-like sheets of handmade paper reference the layers upon layers of fabric that cover Mary’s body. I am questioning the church’s tradition of celebrating and revering Mary while actively preventing women from having access to space within the church.