Hannah Stokes

BFA Printmaking

Website: dingusstudios.com
Instagram: @dingus.studios

ARTIST STATEMENT: "As an interdisciplinary artist operating under the brand "Dingus Studios," my work focuses on process-based techniques, such as printmaking and material experimentation, that explore a fascination for physical sensations. I consider my work sensory art because printmaking in itself is a hands-on, process-based approach to making imagery, and my work comes from a desire to touch, feel, and observe. Picking up insects and toads with my Dad in the biodiverse terrain of the Southwest sparked my early attraction to tactility and interests in entomology and herpetology, our most precious and unusual indicators of a healthy ecosystem. A frog breathes through its skin, and if the environmental conditions aren’t right it will die. An octopus’ intelligence spreads beyond its brain, and into its body and tentacles, its sensuality overlapping into a unique form of intuition. I find that humans and animals have unlikely similarities and I aim to explore the innate needs and simple pleasures of human sensitivity that modern society denies itself on a daily basis.  

 My work intersects topics of intellectual ability/neurodiversity and resistance to social standards and conformity, while celebrating our shared human experiences. It also acknowledges the infantilization of Millennials and Generation Z at the hands of the economic crisis that has disallowed young adult independence for most of the working class. The aesthetics in my work are inspired by 1990s and early 2000s subjects, such as sticky hands and plastic toys, and combine bright and muted colors that evoke nostalgic imagery. I describe my work as a Google Images page of squishy toy stock photos.  

 “Untouchable,” a private, inaccessible installation of squishy silicone sensory toys and CMYK process screen prints, brings this narrative into our current issues amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the sensory deprivations we are faced with as a result. The Round-leaved Sundew, Drosera rotundifolia, is a carnivorous species of plant that uses its dew-drop-like tentacles to lure thirsty insects, like the ill-fated beetle in this screen print, into its sticky trap until it dies of starvation and its nutrients are slowly absorbed into the plant.   

 In many ways, we are this beetle."