Hannah Jetton.

A Letter from the artist.

Rooted in the U.S. South, my work explores the intersection of spirituality, institutional critique, and self-examination. My worldview is deeply interwoven with my community’s reverence for higher powers and divine purpose laced within everyday life. Through navigating the rigid structures of religious tradition, I’ve witnessed firsthand the ways in which doctrine serves as both a natural source of comfort and as a powerful tool of control. Interrogating the fine line between belief and manipulation, I use my personal experiences of questioning, deconstructing, and ultimately redefining my relationship with the divine to fuel my practice, contemplating themes of faith, hypocrisy, and human fallibility. While my pieces all carry my hopes for the Church’s future and aspirations toward altruism, it does not shy away from depicting moral corruption, and the insidious, self-serving dogma of modern church powerbrokers. My work leans heavily on religious and mythological iconography—relying on neo-iconographical echoes of traditional religious symbols to offer a contemporary, critical twist. Ultimately, I aim to continue my personal exploration of spirituality’s power to uplift while confronting its historical role in reinforcing systemic oppression and the bastardization of the heart of my home’s religion.

Currently my project delves into the corrupted journey back to the heart of the Church, exploring themes of power, greed, and spiritual infighting through sculpture. The majority of my work invites viewers to confront the relationship of sacred and profane, exposing how institutional glutoney has distorted the Church’s true mission, offering a critique on the correlation between religious leadership and church-wide moral decay.

Hannah Jetton