Bed Girl – Hannah Walton
Statement
Bed Girl, details the artist’s nuanced and personal relationship with their bed throughout their life. It examines the role of their bed as a home-schooled kid, as well as through lenses of undiagnosed mental illness, ADHD hyperfixations, and depression. Bed Girl also looks at the complexity that beds represent. Beds are meant to be a place of comfort and rest, but for many, can be a place where trauma, grief, and sadness can occur. Bed Girl uses music to create a tone of vulnerability in the space, while using sweet smells to invite the viewer to approach and explore the space. Upon entering, one will find cryptic references carved into and drawn on the wooden bed frame. They will see the bed, piled high with pillows and blankets, and overflowing with items uncharacteristically found tucked beneath sheets. The walls surrounding the space are collaged with an assortment of images quotes, artwork, and decorations which reveal statements of self-doubt and frantic worries. Bed Girl allows the messy and unsettling to engage with the soft and comforting to expand viewers’ notions of what the bed is, has been for them or others, and can potentially be.
Bio
Hannah Walton is an interdisciplinary artist from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she grew up and was home-schooled before attending university. Being home-schooled allowed her to explore her creative interests freely at a young age, and has been “making” for as long as she can remember. At Vanderbilt, she studies Studio Art and Psychology and uses her background in each to visually represent feelings and other psychological phenomena that are difficult to represent scientifically. Following graduation, Hannah will attend Maryland Institute College of Art in their Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts program to explore these themes further.
