HANNAH BARRY

Representing over thirty young artists and running her own gallery space in Peckham, Hannah Barry is doing ridiculously well for a 26 year old! Nicky Carvell caught up with her to talk about artists, filthy warehouses and keeping the faith… 

Nicky: Hi Hannah it sounds like you're pretty busy at the moment! What have you been up to in New York?

Hannah : Were bringing a group of young New York based artists to the gallery next year, so I've been trying to put that exhibition together. It's called Colony and is going to be in May. I was mainly out there to meet those artists.

N: You're pretty young to be running your own gallery! How did it get started?

H: I began making exhibitions with a group of people in 2006 at Lyndhurst Way in Peckham, which was an old house which one of the artists was the caretaker of. We renovated the house so we had ten rooms showing works of art which we always did in depth. After a year the caretaking came to an end, and at that moment I thought things seem to be making very good progress, so I decided to open a gallery. We've made 36 exhibitions since it was founded in 2008 and most of the artists have had one, if not two shows in that time.

N: Do you work with a lot of other artist groups?

H: With Bold Tendencies I thought; weve got this enormous space and there's so many galleries which I really respect and admire in this area-why not invite them to create some central point in which people could experience the character and spirit of each of those galleries?

N: Were you originally from round here?

H: I'm from Dartford, which is the edge of South London and Kent so I've always felt at home around here, New Cross, Lewisham and all those horrible grey places!

N: Did you study art in this area as well?

H: I went to school in Dartford, and then I went to university at Cambridge and studied Art History. But I've always been interested in contemporary art, especially by very young artists. When I was 14 I used to go to all the small galleries. For Christmas one year my parents one year were given a membership card to the Royal Academy, which means you can go into all the exhibitions for free. I would go up to London at weekends and look at the shows. After about six months of doing that, I discovered the galleries in Cork Street etc. In my spare time I was working in Lush, the cosmetics shop, and one day this person called Philip Ilson, who ran The Halloween Film Society came in and through him I started going to the East End.

N: Was that in the 90's?

H: I was 16 so it would've been around 98. I started going to all the little galleries, which I thought was the most exciting thing in the world; to see a degree show by somebody who was only 5 years older than you! I also used to collect this huge archive of press cuttings of exhibitions-invitation cards etc, even before I started going to them.

N: Do you think it's important that a gallery has a close relationship with it's artists?

H: Totally critical. I think that if you don't then you can't expect to get the best work out of people. There are all sorts of horror stories and all one can do is try to avoid repeating them oneself.

N: Do you have any advice for young artists starting out?

H: That's so difficult. I don't think it's possible to give advice like that. If one is meant to make art, then one will make art. If it's meant to be, it will be. It's dreadful to talk about success and failure because it's human nature to want to be at the top. Art isn't just about the person who makes it; it's also about what other people feel about it. I think the most important piece of advice one could give is just carry on, carry on… 

…read the full interview in the new issue of SuperSuper!

Words by: Nicky Carvell

Article by supersupertv