Hannah Bernadette – Body Talks

Hannah Bernadette is a self-taught visual artist based on Awabakal Country (Newcastle) whose practice explores the intimate relationship between the body, emotion and the environment. Trained as a physiotherapist, her dual careers are united by a deep curiosity for the body – its sensations, memory and the influence of the nervous system on perception and experience.

Her latest body of work, Body Talks, emerged from a transformative free-diving trip, where immersion in the ocean revealed unexpected depths, both physical and emotional. In surrendering to the water and listening to her body’s signals, Bernadette found a new way of painting: looser, more intuitive, and charged with presence. The result is a series of bold, abstract works that reflect the rhythms of breath, movement and nervous system states.

Bernadette’s background in physiotherapy – particularly her work with individuals navigating chronic pain – has sharpened her sensitivity to the body’s silent language. Her painting practice has become both an extension of this knowledge and a form of somatic inquiry. It is a space for release, reflection and reconnection, where intuition overrides control and colour becomes a tool for translation.

Working primarily on heavy canvas with acrylics, oil paint and oil pastels, she builds layered compositions through gestural mark-making and vivid contrasts. Each work pulses with energy, inviting the viewer to slow down, drop in and attune to the body’s intelligence. In Body Talks, Bernadette explores what becomes possible creatively and emotionally when we listen from within. Her work invites a return to vitality, to presence and to the full spectrum of being alive.