BIRMINGHAM OPEN STUDIOS 2025 Artist Spotlight - Hannah Pugh
There’s something about Hannah Pugh’s work that makes you pause. At first, it feels soft and dreamy, the dark fluid skies, distant horizons, dark oceans caught mid swell. But then you notice the unexpected details: the bleach marks, the textures, the little glimmers of gold. There’s calm and chaos sitting side by side, and that balance is exactly what makes her work so captivating.
Hannah is an independent artist based just outside Birmingham and trained at Falmouth College of Art. Her paintings live somewhere between daydream and quiet rebellion. Influenced by the Romantics and Tonalists, her work nods to tradition but never plays it safe, she’s always reaching for something deeper, something slightly untethered.
The Process: Ink, Bleach, and Intuition
Hannah’s process is gloriously hands-on, a little messy, a little magic. She works with ink, bleach, acrylic, watercolour, and gilded details, layering textures and letting the materials guide her. She’s always sketching, scraping, puddling, dripping, following intuition over rules. “I like to have various plates spinning at the same time,” she says. “I’m never quite sure where inspiration is going to land.”
That spontaneity is part of what makes her work so immersive and authentic. Each piece evolves in real time, becoming a little world of its own.
Spaces for Stories and Maybes
Hannah describes her paintings as “spaces and places to fill with stories and maybes”, and it’s the perfect way to think about them. These aren’t just landscapes; they’re speculative environments. Elsewhere. Somewhere. Nowhere. Everywhere. They shimmer with their own story-like charm, drawing you in, encouraging you to hang around and discover your own tale within them.
Her SomeWear jewellery carries the same energy, soft-edged, tactile pieces that feel like memory made wearable. And then there’s her Nocturne series: iridescent, shadowy works that shift as you move around them.
This September, Hannah is bringing the energy of her All Is Not Lost Art Studio to Seventh Circle Gallery for Birmingham Open Studios 2025 and you’ll get a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into her creative world.
Weekend 1 Only
Saturday 20th & 21st September
11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Seventh Circle Gallery, Digbeth
Expect to see Hannah working live on her Nocturne series , large-scale paintings on wooden panels that begin as “Inklings,” early sparks from her sketchbooks explored on a bigger scale. She’ll also be hand-finishing giclée prints with precious metal leaf, turning each one into a unique piece as well as creating miniature ink-and-bleach works for her SomeWear jewellery collection.
Why You’ll Want to Be There
This won’t be a tidy demo, this will be a living studio, layered, experimental, and buzzing with energy! Excited? So are we! Paintings mid-process. Prints drying. Jewellery evolving. Ideas sparking in every direction.
Come with questions. Stay for the mayhem and the magic. Leave with something that feels like it came from a place you’ve almost remembered.
We’ll be shining a spotlight on more artists leading up to BOS, each one a glimpse into their processes and the person behind them.
Keep an eye on the blog and our socials for sneak peeks, demo schedules, and behind-the-scenes magic.
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