Artist Highlight - Hannah Norris

1. In Barren, the form evokes a uterine structure opening into an empty void. How did this sculptural language emerge during the making process?

I knew I wanted to use a more literal form over the abstract. It felt like I had been carrying a weight with me for years. I remember this feeling of wanting to rip my insides out. That’s what Barren is. This empty, fruitless viscera inside me made visible. I wanted the eye to be drawn into that emptiness; the interior texture mimics the internal scarring in my own uterus. It’s a raw, ugly, beautiful thing.

2. Graphite is traditionally associated with drawing rather than jewellery. What drew you to this fragile, staining material as a central element of the piece?

The first pieces of graphite I ever carved were discarded casting crucibles. There’s an irony that the medium I chose to evoke fragility and infertility is a resilient material of creation. With drawing graphite has an ephemeral nature, slowly wearing away. But in jewellery it’s used to hold molten metal, to carry and form new creations – it’s very womb-like. I initially focused on graphite’s transferable nature to depict shame, but reflecting after the piece’s conception I thought; is the womb not a crucible for life? It gave the work a new perspective; something initially dark began to feel hopeful.

3. The graphite marks the wearer’s skin and clothing as it is worn. How does this act of transfer contribute to the conceptual meaning of the work?

It becomes a physical marker of the complex feelings of shame and guilt. It distinguishes the wearer as ‘other’, impure or unclean. It’s a manifestation of the taboo surrounding infertility and the expectations of womanhood. Historically, childless women have been considered outcasts of society, looked upon with pity, derision or contempt (and still are by many). Even now women choosing to be childless regardless of fertility are called selfish – the idea that an empty womb is a waste or a radical thing. In Barren, these projections and emotions become physical marks on the wearer.

4. Pearls historically symbolise femininity, purity, and fertility. How does incorporating these references complicate or challenge those associations within the piece?

I wanted to rebel against the classic image of the ‘ideal woman’. In society, the pearl necklace is often associated with the docile housewife, the respectable lady, a coming-of-age gift upon entering womanhood. When you don’t fit into those parameters, a simple necklace begins to feel like a restrictive narrative. I chose irregular, imperfect pearls over the clean sophisticated standard to challenge that traditional ideal. I wanted them to be unsettling and flesh-like, a string of little cysts like those inside my own body.

5. You describe the work as both talismanic and corporeal. How do you see the object functioning symbolically when worn on the body?

The physicality of the piece felt really important to me, especially in terms of the weight and scale. The pendant sits where the uterus resides internally. It takes a painful emotional weight and makes it physical – I wanted it to feel uncomfortable when worn. But there’s also a duality to its form. It can be cradled and held, imbuing the pendant with feelings of hope and longing, that somehow that emptiness will be filled. It’s these projections that feed the pendant’s talismanic power as an amulet for fertility.

6. Carving plays a significant role in your practice. How does the physical act of carving shape the emotional intensity embedded in the final form?

Carving by hand acts as a ritualistic transfer of the emotional into the physical. The motions are repetitive and instinctual; you enter a meditative state. During the process I’m not thinking ‘how do I create this shape, how do I move my tool’, I’m just feeling and my body follows. There was a moment where it became so intense, years of internalised emotions suddenly peaked and hit me like a crashing wave – I just broke down cradling this lump of graphite. I could feel it leaving my body into the pendant, like an intense catharsis.

7. The necklace connects personal experience with broader cultural expectations placed on women’s bodies. How do you navigate this balance between the personal and the collective?

Barren was the first time I created something intensely personal; it was intimidating. I didn’t consider the collective experience until after I made it. I don’t want to project these feelings onto others in my situation. It’s too complex of a subject to think everyone with fertility issues feel the same as I did when making this. However, if there are others that resonate with it, that find comfort in it, I welcome that.

8. Within The Invisible Made Visible, the work brings intimate and often unspoken experiences into view. What conversations or reflections do you hope the piece might open for viewers?

I remember discussing the title before I’d even made the work, and people were shocked by the choice. It’s a harsh, uncomfortable word. It’s an insult. I think I wanted to throw that feeling back at the world, I wanted it to be a gut punch. I think I just wanted people to feel it. What the viewer takes from those raw emotions, the reflections that follow that empathy, that’s theirs to carry now.