Queensland

Born in 1979 in Macclesfield, England, Hannah Broom is a visual artist currently living and working in Brisbane, Australia. Known for the graphic use of her own body in her art, Broom's practice explores themes of language, sexuality and identity. Her work has been exhibited by galleries including the Queensland Centre of Photography, The QUT Art Museum, MetroArts and SoApBox.

Broom holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Visual Art) with Honours and a Master of Arts (Research) in Visual Art from the Queensland University of Technology. Her work has been published as cover art by the University of Queensland Press and has appeared in numerous street journals. Her writing has been published in Eyeline. Broom was one of 35 state finalists for the 2005 Queensland Artworkers Award.

Hannah Broom is a photographer whose work is as undeniably shocking as it is funny. Genitals, food, offal, bodily fluids and cheap plastic novelty toys are often to be found floating in familiar domestic microcosms; a doormat, a mirror, the kitchen floor. Bodily experiences of sexuality, identity, language and the complex relationships between them are central concerns.

Broom explores the awkward, the hidden and unsaid; the physical reality of having a body and its role in shaping our perception of the world around us. These images tug at memories of our own bodily exploration and discovery; what we do to ourselves when we think nobody else is looking.

Broom’s work taps into deep cultural anxieties about the body; the historical separation of mind, reason and logic from the realm of flesh and the ensuing need to control, cover and play down the role of the body in shaping our understanding of both ourselves and the world around us. Her most recent work is a series of humourous re-enactments of popular expressions that reference the body in order to better understand (mental) experience or sensation. Hold my tongue, heart on my sleeve, spitting image. They attempt to make (visual) language express what words alone cannot.