Hannah Macfarlane
She / Her
Hannah Macfarlane (b.1996) is a Cape Town-based artist who works experimentally at the intersection of fine art and craft. Macfarlane explores the crossroads 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 holds a BA Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Her work has been shown in multiple group exhibitions and fairs in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Paris and London, most recently at the Association of Visual Arts (AVA) and for Everard Read’s Cubicle Series, both in Cape Town (2025). Her first museum shows are currently underway at the Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town (2026-2027) and Sogn og Fjordane Museum, Førde, Norway (2026).
Macfarlane was a Tilga Art Fund finalist (2022), and in the same year was awarded a residency at the South African Foundation For Contemporary Art’s (SAFFCA) residency centre in Knysna, South Africa. She is represented by Guns & Rain, and her work sits in multiple international collections.
Hannah is represented by Guns & Rain
