Meet Hannah: Intern & Exhibitions Coordinator

Hannah Finnan is a painter, American West enthusiast, goth-metal lover, and projected graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute Class of 2024. We have been thrilled to have her on our team as an intern over the last two semesters, and look forward to her joining our team as Exhibitions Coordinator this May! Learn more about Hannah, her work, and upcoming exhibitions below.

Mallory Edson, Communications Manager

“You Could Have it so Much Better”, 2023, Oil Canvas , 48” x 34”

My name is Hannah Finnan and I am the Studios Inc lead intern for Spring 2024 as well as a painter myself. I moved to Kansas City in 2020 to pursue a BFA (Painting and Art History) from the Kansas City Art Institute and am projected to graduate in May of this year.

“Yell Louder! They’ll Understand”, 2024 , Oil on Canvas , 60” x 40”

My work stems from my upbringing as a first generation American child of immigrants. Through representational oil painting and sculpture that obscures the personal in order to present the universal, I tell the story of enculturation. In my paintings, I want my audience to consider the bizarreness of the American West as a metaphor for navigating America as an outsider. The narratives in my “weird west” landscapes are inspired by my own story, but are changed enough for all viewers to relate to. The figures in my paintings allow me to appropriate imagery and ephemera from American & International pop culture to create a surreal universe with which to tell a story. My autobiographical landscapes of the “weird west” obscure the personal in order to present the universal. My upbringing and current life is bizarre, so naturally my paintings have to be bizarre. That bizarreness is a better reflection of my experience than a literal retelling of my story. I am an amalgamation of influences and experiences and reference that in my work. The tragic and comic are parts of socialization in another country so naturally I am interested in inept aliens bumping around their new land and scaring cattle. This is emphasized in pieces such as “You’ve Caught Everything Cept a Clue” and “You Could Have it so Much Better.” The American West is a second home to me, more like a chosen home. Just as a person choosing to come to a new country chooses their home, I have chosen mine. In choosing my own path, I open myself up to the intricacies and absurdities of a new society and even though enculturation is not my story just as my paintings are not my story, I tell this tale in earnest.

“You’ve Caught Everything C’ept a Clue”, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 34” x 48”

A culmination of this work will be on display as a part of a duo show opening April 5th at Vulpes Bastille. I'm extremely excited to become more involved in the KC arts scene and in addition to the show, I will be taking over the position of Exhibitions Coordinator at Studios Inc in May of 2024. I am also the recipient of the Lead Bank Emerging Artist Prize and the St. Louis Artists Guild Frani Weinstock Scholarship.