Methven-based sculptor Hannah Kidd predominantly crafts and welds sculptural creations from steel rod and corrugated iron as a means to investigate people and the relationships they have with their surrounding environment. Hannah Kidd graduated in 2001 from the Otago Polytechnic School of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in sculpture.
She has quickly risen to critical acclaim and her distinctive and unique work has been exhibited around the world, including I’m sure I’ve seen that before in Vienna, Austria (2002); Sculpture by the Sea, Australia (2007, 2009, 2011), and Sculpture by the Sea, Denmark (2009, 2011), along with numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout New Zealand. In 2010 she won the Montalto Sculpture Award, Australia, and the People’s Choice Award at NZ Sculpture OnShore, and in 2012 was a finalist in the Montalto Sculpture Award, Australia, and the New Zealand Wallace Art Awards.
‘This is what keeps coming up for me when I think about how people helped each other through the Christchurch earthquakes. Help came in all shapes and sizes and not always heroic or dramatic gestures – more domestic. A city in flux needs consistency and this is what helps people feel normal: by going to work, to school, keeping the garden, exercising – “Shared Strengths”; not just helping in the immediate aftermath of the quakes, but the things that were done in the weeks and months following, and things that are still being done.”
— Hannah Kidd