Hannah Macfarlane
AVA Exhibition: Try a Little Tenderness (Dou Show) | 20.11.25 - 24.01.26
Hannah Macfarlane (b.1996) is a Cape Town-based artist who works experimentally at the intersection of fine art and craft. Macfarlane explores the intersections between the natural world, human vulnerability, and cycles of growth and decay. Working primarily with wet-felted wool, she creates sculptures that embrace imperfection, fragility, and transformation. Her practice uses wool’s sensuous softness and resilient strength to delve into themes of intimacy and vulnerability, while developing strategies of conscious care and presence.
Her soft sculptures are formed through the cathartic, embodied method of wet- felting—a meditative yet physically rigorous process that fuses fibres using hot water, soap, and friction. This slow transformation of raw wool into strong, versatile forms becomes a metaphor for human experience. The resulting works serve as vessels for connection, symbolising the complex, symbiotic relationship between humans and the natural world. Macfarlane graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2020. She has since exhibited her work in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Paris and London.
In 2021 she was part of Latitudes’ ArtistLab development programme and was selected for Guns & Rain’s Fresh Voices exhibition. In 2022, she was awarded a residency at the South African Foundation For Contemporary Art’s residency centre in Knysna, South Africa and was one of the recipients awarded the Tilga Art Fund. In 2023, Macfarlane’s work was included in Christophe Person in Paris and Addis Fine Art in London. In 2025, she exhibited an installation at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair with Guns & Rain and was included in ‘Wool World’, a showcase curated by fashion house VIVIERS and design studio HOVEN at the Winter Wool Festival. Most recently, Macfarlane exhibited a body of work at Everard Read in Cape Town, as part of the Cubicle Series.
Instagram: @hannahmacfarlane.studio
