Meet Hannah Knight Leighton | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hannah Knight Leighton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hannah, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
It’s imperative and inescapable. After graduate school in 2021, I moved to LA to work as an artist assistant in the Pacific Palisades. I moved there knowing only one person- my cousin who lives in Redondo. I have now been here two years and am proud of the connections and community I’ve been able to foster. Knowing when and how to tame fear is something that comes to artists out of necessity. You have to be fearless to follow your passions and stay true to your aesthetic values. In a world that constantly wants to shape shift and commodify your work, you have to be strong. Risk-taking means knowing when to pause, reflect, and remove yourself from toxic situations. When I first moved here I had hoped that the many negative stereotypes were wrong. I think unfortunately it’s true that LA has more than its share of egotistical, superficial people with insatiable money-grubbing appetites. This exists everywhere, but it is condensed and supercharged here in a way I find exhausting. And yet I’ve met some unbelievably sharp, kind-hearted folks whom I cherish. My friends continually astound me with their sensitivities and generosity. The artists’ plight is ultimately about receptivity, remaining open to new places, people, and experiences. It is through this process of risk-taking that our consciousness expands and makes us realize we share a deeper level of connection to one another and the fragile world around us.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Art is a force that moves within us and awakens our curiosity, deepening our awareness of beauty easily overlooked and taken for granted. I believe that the development of a disciplined and rigorous artistic practice has the capacity to expand our perception and heighten sensitivity, empathy, and global awareness. My artistic curiosities are stimulated by tensions between traditional and contemporary craft techniques, painting history, the aesthetics of casual consumerism, and the influence of digital technologies on present-day perceptions. Paying homage to several histories, my work embraces a type of painting polytheism that models the importance of research and risk-taking- (I’m a painter using a tufting gun!) My desire to expand upon my existing knowledge of mark-making through new modes of technology fuels my artistic drive.

Showing up, regardless of the outcome, is essential to my discipline. My main objective is not simply to feed the commercial machine, but to create work that generates more questions than answers. I engage in risk taking that honors and inspires others. For me that takes shape through an embrace of careful craftsmanship, ambitious scale, and the use of bold color. A successful artwork leaves the door open and invites a shared engagement with the unknown. Successful art hovers somewhere between finality and a state of perpetual search. Not resorting to formulaic moves or solutions—embracing the slog that inevitably occurs in the studio—is a form of success.

Healthy food, a good night’s sleep, time spent goofing with friends, exercise, reading; these all ignite my fire, kindle my creativity and warm my spirits. It’s difficult to make work when the cold demands of survival throw off our equilibrium.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
During the day I recommend moseying some botanical gardens- the Arboretum or Huntington Gardens. There are only about two million galleries to choose from in Los Angeles, I recommend researching current shows using the apps Seesaw or CurateLA so you can plan an efficient course of action. Dinner at Salazar (prickly pear cocktails + zucchini corn quesadillas + hot churros for dessert) followed by a show at Zebulon. Or a cozy game night with friends, you can never go wrong…

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Scribble in Highland Park! It’s a non-profit that not only offers therapy on a sliding scale, but also terrific arts programming. They’ve put on some killer music shows, and experimental art performances, painting exhibitions too… It’s a special place, I recommend everyone show up to a game night or sound show. This month I’ll be launching a monthly lecture series there called Babble.

The mission of Babble is to facilitate a space for artists to share insights about the inner workings of their discipline as well as their beliefs, questions and curiosities. What does sustaining a serious practice in a conflicted capitalist society look like? How do you sustain yourself psychologically and physically? What fuels your practice? What is your relationship to place, and how does your environment impact your work? What values do you hold close, and how do you define artistic success? How do we embrace harmony in a state of constant disequilibrium? I don’t have the answers, but gathering to develop a shared artistic language seems a worthy endeavor… this wouldn’t be possible without Scribble! I encourage you to check it out- LA needs more spots like this…

Website: https://www.hannahknightleighton.com/

Instagram: @knightmight

Image Credits
Moe Wakai