Hannah Alberts

I am a U.S. based artist living in Des Moines, Iowa. My love for creation began at a very young age with finger paints, making mud soup with my sister, drawing, and playing with makeup.

I studied Studio Arts at the University of Iowa for a couple of years before switching majors. I explored figure drawing, graphic design, printmaking, and ceramics. I painted at home on recycled canvasses and garage walls. I graduated with a degree in Elementary Education and went on to do one on one work with children with autism. Art has been a coping skill, safe haven, playfully engaging process, and sometimes a social bridge for many of them. For me, I paint to come back to the present. Taking action when I feel lost. Making something novel, exciting, and fresh in states of boredom or stagnancy. Being present with the brush, my hands, the water, the mess, the pressure, the color, the release of what I didn’t even know I needed to let go slowly seep out of me with each stroke.

How would I explain my process?
If it’s just for me, I don’t always begin with a concrete image or idea. I begin with an emotional need or an afflatus. A desire to speak without words, to move without judgment, to create without producing with an end goal or profit in mind. Sometimes I have colors or shapes in mind.
Some commissions I've done have had more structure and guidelines – desired colors, size, and themes. These have a much more straightforwa...