Hannah Tarkinson

Hannah Tarkinson (Portland, ME) is an artist, craftsperson and musician known

for her work under the monikers of Ponono (fine jewelry and leatherwork) as

well as Ghostboxx, isobell, and Port of Est (music projects). Tarkinson’s

most recent works blend leather, metals, textiles, and photography into mixed

media assemblages.

Tarkinson studied photography at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

For the past 19 years, she has honed the skills of metal and leather work and

over time has slowly brought the small collage adornments she creates for the

body, onto canvas and into the art world.

In 2013, Tarkinson became one of her father, Doug Sholl’s, primary caretakers

when he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. In a search to

find an outlet for her grief, she turned to assembling layers of mixed media.

Tarkinson’s assemblages were never intended to be shared publicly, but as her

clients (many of them, fellow Maine artists) would visit her studio for

jewelry and leather commissions, they would inquire about the artwork on the

walls and began commissioning pieces for their homes.

Similarly, in 2019 while visiting the Ponomo studio for a pair of earrings,

gallery owner Elizabeth Moss noticed some of Tarkinson’s artwork and

immediately offered her a show. This show, The Anatomy of In Between, with

Ellie Barnet, just closed at the end of September

(https://www.pressherald.com/2020/08/31/artists-united-in-grief-show-work-infalmouth/).

Artist Statement:

My assemblages stem from the alchemy of grief embodied and reimagined into

hope.

Using mostly salvaged elements, hours upon hours are spent in the liminal

space of layering- each piece unfolding as I go, resulting in pools of

details to get lost in.

The processes of hand tooling/dying/stitching leather, hand forging metals,

and reconstructing textiles are a meditation on memory, transformation and

the in-between.