Hanna Seggerman is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who creates two- and three-dimensional works that are shown nationally in both gallery and public art exhibitions. She is currently attending graduate school to receive her Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Seggerman will complete her thesis exhibition in May of 2023. Alongside her studio work and teaching, she serves as the Director of Gallery 1010, the student-run non-profit gallery in downtown Knoxville that hosts weekly exhibitions of student artwork, performances, and curatorial projects. Her recent studio work has a foundational relationship with the structure of Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs. She continues to find the act of artmaking to be a means to meet both personal and universal needs. Her work titled “Surround” on exhibit here in the Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden is an exploration of deconstruction. She uses this as a means to achieve abstraction, forcing the viewer to slow down. “Surround” was intimately inspired by the performative act of dissecting in half a twin sized mattress, exposing the many resilient materials within. Most notable were the metal bed springs that were referenced in the construction and form of “Surround.” This act of deconstruction brought forth the hidden details of this common human object we utilize on a daily basis and share the same living space with in connection with our own human bodies. Seggerman works to create opportunities like this for light to be shed on the objects that are often disregarded due to their visual separation from the outside world.
