Shifting Horizons explores symbolic links across cultures and between ancient and contemporary lives. Kay's works are reflections on encounters with the natural world. As the artist explains "transience and permanence are the poles between which my practice has been suspended. [...] my art tends to emphasize the liminal: the state of being between fluidity and solidity, between absence and substance, between order and disorder." ¹

On her first journey to China, Kay visited archaeological relics unearthed at the imperial burial grounds in Xi'an. The fragments of an ancient empire protruding out of sandy pits found their way into Kay's artworks, which the artist describes as a "site where the existential tension between human transiency and the perpetuity of the natural environment is played out." ²

"A desert looms high in my personal and cultural memories. On the one hand, violent campaigns and tribal feuds have been fought over an expanse of the arid terrain in which I was born. On the other hand – a desert is a serene place of meditation and contemplation. In the dusty Chinese burial pits, filled with the remains of an ancient empire, I reflected on my past desert experiences that were crucial to my decision to become an artist, and have shaped my subsequent thinking and the choices I have made. Back in the studio, I set out to make a body of work that will offer a contemplative space in which to reflect, among other things, on wars and its aftermath." ³

Hanna Kay’s life has been marked by significant journeys. She left her native Israel to study in Vienna, spent a decade living and working in New York, another decade in Sydney, and now makes her home in the beautiful landscape of the Upper Hunter. A prolific practitioner, her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and throughout regional Australia. ⁴

1. Excerpt from Hanna Kay Shifting Horizons, 2016 (url)
2. ibid.
3. ibid.
4.Three Women Went to China: Suzanne Archer, Hanna Kay and Sarah Tomasetti by Luise Guest (url)