Hannah Shand
Resides Kapiti Coast
Passionate about New Zealand’s native flora and fauna, Hannah Shand is an artist dedicated to conservation as much as her art practice. Actively working with conservation groups and bird sanctuaries to help fundraise, as well as spreading awareness of their crucial work, Hannah specialises in realistic pen drawings of our native birds. Using her photography and meticulous art skills to capture and showcase the beauty of nature, Hannah hopes to inspire others to care about our wildlife as much as she does.
Her artwork in the Southward exhibition, Sailing Sooty, was inspired by her voyage with Heritage Expeditions to the Subantarctic Islands where she was lucky to see some of these beautiful birds nesting on Campbell Island. The light-mantled sooty albatross (toroa pango) is an elegant New Zealand native seabird; with its distinctive sooty face, long graceful wings, and white, crescent-shaped eye highlight. Lesser-known and lesser-studied, the toroa pango albatross, with their circumpolar breeding distribution, are less likely to be seen near the New Zealand mainland. And even less likely to be seen and monitored due to their solitary nesting habits in hard to reach locations like cliff edges; foraging strategies different to other albatross which means they aren’t attracted to ships and fishing vessels; and they travel much further south toward Antarctica, too.
Hannah acknowledges that the reference photograph for this artwork was taken by Aaron Russ of Heritage Expeditions on the cliffs of Enderby Island. Aaron has been travelling to the Subantarctic Islands for over three decades, and has an immense passion, knowledge and dedication to conservation.