FERAL TENDERNESS
New York, September 2026
Raised in a bohemian household where art was treated as a devotional practice rather than a career, HANNAH BEERMAN learned early that creativity could be a form of freedom. It was only after the death of a close friend, and her subsequent decision to drop out of college, that painting became something a lot more urgent: a relationship she could depend on, a means of making sense of loss, connection and survival. Working from the floor, often across dozens of paintings at once, the artist embraces accumulation, intuition and what she calls the “wisdom of the surprise” — allowing colour, objects, chance and failure to determine where a work might go. Ahead of her exhibition intramural kissing on the Little Dipper at the Kim and Gupta Gallery in New York, Beerman spoke to SP about artistic ancestors, the seduction of chaos, and the ongoing search for new possibilities of being.
Top Vaquera, shorts Hannah’s own, shoes Simone Rocha
You grew up in a family with a strong creative background. How did that environment influence you, and do you still recognise its influence in the way you work or the things you’re drawn to?
It taught me how to appreciate absurd things in life. I grew up in a pretty bohemian household, and art was a way of life. It wasn’t a job or a vocation. It was a devotional way of living. Seeing that, I knew that this kind of freedom in yourself and in communicating was possible. I had it role-modelled for me that I could choose this kind of life.
So you felt supported to go as far as you wanted into this avenue?
Well, they always told me not to be an artist. They were like, “Break the family curse.”
Why do you think you couldn’t help but do it anyway?
My best friend passed away when I was in college, and I dropped out. That’s when I started painting. It was the only thing that made any sense to me in this world of how to be a person, how to connect to other people. It was the only medium I understood. I also made this commitment to painting as a primary relationship in my life because I was very young, and I had experienced such a loss that I decided that if I poured myself into painting, it would pour itself into me, and it wouldn’t abandon me or die. As long as I feed it, it’ll feed me.
Left Dress Super Yaya, necklace Simone Rocha
Right Just In The Knick Of Time/ Weight Lifter Ii, 2022, Courtesy of the artist and kim and gupta gallery
How does that experience of loss appear in your paintings, or in what you’re trying to do with them?
What I’m trying to do is calibrate and deconstruct the experiences of living that I have every day as a developing, evolving person. My process is really the main part of my making. It’s watching a painting evolve and grow, making mistakes, failing, presenting new resolutions and new opportunities. That helps me cope with life because it helps me exercise muscles to leave room for new experiments in living and survival, and opportunities for love and learning in new ways.
Speaking of process, I’ve read that it can sometimes take years before you return to a painting and reconsider it. How do you know when a painting needs to be left alone, versus when it needs to be revisited?
Every painting is different and has its own identity that needs to be fulfilled. It kind of makes the rules for itself.
If it asks to be put away — even if that sounds a bit crazy — I will. I work on so many paintings at the same time. Sometimes I fill up my whole floor with paintings. Different paintings call me at different times.
Is it that you intuitively recognise that something feels unresolved?
Yeah, or that I haven’t resolved something in myself. I follow my impulses, I experiment and only over time am I able to analyse and understand my drives. This part can only happen through living and investigating – all of the parts of the human experience.
Top Gucci, shorts Hannah’s own
There’s also this practice of accumulation in your work. What makes an object fascinating to you? Is it its backstory, its visual qualities, what it signifies to you, or something else entirely?
It’s all of those things. It started primarily based on colour and form, and I would use objects as pieces of paint and arrange them that way. The objects I’m attracted to are all different. A lot are from mundane human living, things that are manufactured. Some are organic, from the world that I interact with. Some fabric or something could have a strong, significant history to me. But I’m very open to what I’m drawn to and what I hold on to.
Can an object ever inform an entire work? Does it become a starting point?
Sometimes. Every painting I start can feel like it’s my first time making a painting. It can start with an object. It can start with paint. It can start with moving my body. It could start with experiencing light hitting me in a certain way.
What do you do when you’re struggling with the work? Is there anything you find helpful for breaking that cycle?
That’s a great question. Sometimes I’ll try meditating, and I’ll turn to art history to look for heroes and role models and recognise that they struggle too. And I’m like, “I’m part of a lineage.”
Left Top Gucci, shorts and shoes Hannah’s own
Right Here To Stay/Intramural Kissing On The Little Dipper, 2026, Courtesy of the artist and kim and gupta gallery
Who are some of the figures you’ve recently turned to in that way?
I just saw a movie the other day about Barbara Hammer, the filmmaker. She was a radical pioneer. I have a lot of influences, particularly women who persevered and made great work in the face of challenges in life. Alice Neel is also someone like that. And having colleagues or comrades is really inspiring too.
I like this idea of having these “godmothers”, if you will.
Yeah. I like to look back into my artistic genealogy, or my artistic family tree. I don’t mean literally, but spiritually.
There’s a real physicality to your process, particularly in the fact that you work solely on the floor. Why does that feel right to you? What does it allow you to do?
I think there’s a kind of feral aspect and, at the same time, an aspect of gentleness. Before precision, irrational chance can occur. Something else I love about working on the floor is that I can see all of the many paintings at the same time, in relation to each other. I can experiment with one element on one painting and then move it to another painting if that works better. It’s like a live ecosystem where they inform each other and grow and change. I think it has to do with developing in bodies and groupings.
Left Dress Super Yaya, necklace Simone Rocha
Right Playing For Keeps, 2026, Courtesy of the artist and kim and gupta gallery
You mentioned “irrational chance.” Does that idea also guide you through colour and the palettes you use?
I’m really drawn to bright and bold colours, colours that are electric. I’m interested in morphing relationships to those things associated with those colours, but I’m also drawn to subtle and dark colours. I’m really interested in colour relationships and how moments of colour talk to each other on a surface.
Do you ever feel surprised by the way those colours come together, or do they all have a meaning to you before you combine them?
They all have a meaning for me. But the greatest gift is the wisdom of the surprise of what the process can comprehend and put together that I couldn’t in my own limited experience.
The press release for your show describes the paintings as being “seduced by the notion of chaos.” What do you find seductive about chaos? Why do you feel drawn to it?
I feel drawn to the sexiness and appeal of struggle and absurdity and humour and grief. I’m looking for ways to digest that through the process of making, through experiments.
Top Vaquera
Let’s talk about the exhibition more specifically. It brings together both older works and paintings made especially for the show. When you were selecting the works, did anything surprise you about the way they corresponded with one another, or why certain works belonged together?
I’m really excited about all of these paintings, and there’s a consistent formal thread.
There’s a thread that flows through all of these works that hits the same tenor for me. They feel like they’re on the same frequency.
And what’s the meaning behind the title of the exhibition?
Essentially, I was trying to write a song. The way I was doing that was similar to how I collect materials for collages and paintings, through different parts of life. The way I use language is that I collect it from conversations, media, things I read — specific words or little phrases. Then, when it’s time to name things, I sift through everything and come up with combinations that fit together. It’s like a little poem.
Almost like a textual collage?
Yeah.
Exhibition views, Courtesy of the artist and kim and gupta gallery
So in everyday life, do you find yourself writing down words that you find intriguing or complicated? Things you overhear on the subway, a line in a movie, something a kid says?
Yeah. If I overhear something on the subway, or a line in a movie, or something I heard a kid say, or something that I’ve read somewhere.
Finally, outside of this show, what are you trying to figure out in your work right now that you haven’t quite nailed yet?
Honestly, I’m trying to figure out everything. I’m just trying to discover new possibilities of being. I don’t know if that’s too general or sounds grandiose or something, but I’m trying to figure out new ways of making, and ways to expand and get deeper and take new chances.
The exhibition intramural kissing on the Little Dipper is on view until Oct 31st, 2026 at the Kim and Gupta Gallery in New York.
Interview by Martin Onufriwcz
Photography by Tiffany Nicholson
Fashion by Jensen Edmondson
Hair and Make-Up by Ginger Leigh Ryan
Production by kim and gupta gallery
All pictures Courtesy of kim and gupta gallery