About Hannah Cooper.

Hannah Cooper is a weaver and visual artist based in Bundanoon, Australia. Hannah’s work plays with (and resists) the formal language of geometric abstraction and the structural and creative constraints of weaving. An over-under grid is the basis of all cloth weaving - Hannah’s work is rooted in the ability to emphasise or distort that very simple structure: to stay firmly on the grid or to move off it.

Hannah is a self-taught weaver. Initially teaching herself basic techniques on a rigid heddle loom and concentrating on simple plain weave cloth made from local superfine merino wool, she now weaves on a manual 12-shaft countermarch floor loom, utilising more complex structures but maintaining a focus on entirely analogue weaving. Hannah also naturally-dyes thread with plants and insects for use in her artworks and teaches natural dyeing through workshops and to school groups.

In addition to her art practice, Hannah is a physiologist and lawyer. She worked in international labour law before committing to a full time arts practice.

Hannah is represented in NSW by Jennings Kerr.

AWARDS

  • Finalist Wangaratta Contemporary Textiles Award 2025

  • Finalist 24th Dobell Drawing Prize 2025

  • Finalist Hadley’s Art Prize 2023

  • Finalist Glover Prize 2023

  • Highly Commended (Nick Waterlow OAM Award) Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize 2022

  • Finalist Seed Stitch Contemporary Textiles Award 2022

  • Finalist Little Things Art Prize 2022

  • Finalist The Alice Prize 2022

  • Finalist Little Things Art Prize 2021

  • Finalist Corner Store Mini Series Art Prize 2021

  • Finalist Meroogal Women’s Art Prize 2020

  • Finalist Kangaroo Valley Arts Prize 2020

SIGNIFICANT COLLECTIONS

  • Macquarie Group collection

  • The Darling, Sydney (10 pieces in the penthouses and suites)

SOLO SHOWS

  • (Upcoming) ‘Before we lose the light’, Jennings Kerr Gallery, June-July 2025

  • ‘Warping the weft’, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, June-July 2024

  • ‘Slow pixels’, Jennings Kerr Gallery, Robertson, January-February 2024

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS

  • ‘Radical Textiles’, Art Gallery of South Australia, November 2024 - March 2025

  • ‘Material Matters: Material Experimentation’, Ararat TAMA, October 2024 - February 2025

  • ‘Let the sunshine in’, Five Walls, Melbourne, 2 - 24 February 2024

  • ‘Threads’, Jennings Kerr Gallery, Robertson, 17 November - 17 December 2023

  • ‘Material Matters: Materials and Context’, Australian Design Centre, Sydney, 30 March - 24 May 2023

  • ‘Seed Stitch Contemporary Textiles’, Tamworth Regional Gallery, 3 December - 29 January 2023

  • Summer Salon, Jennings Kerr Gallery, Robertson, 4 - 18 December 2022

  • ‘Seed Stitch Contemporary Textiles’, Australian Design Centre, Sydney, 7 October - 16 November 2022

  • ‘Woven in Nature’, Saywell Gallery, Sydney, June 2022