I was born in a blizzard, during a lunar eclipse and have lived in Rhode Island for most of my life. The Northeastern seasons are in constant flux. The ocean spray and air mix, the woods are full of unseen life. These natural phenomena, along with the New England transcendentalists’ foundational respect for nature and working with ones’ hands, have shaped my thought and art making. Although my first professional ambition was to be a wildlife rehabilitator, I became a photographer and animator. But my work still engages with the obscure boundary between the living and the dead and I view art making as something wild with an unpredictable life of its own.
Tears in Things 2025
archival inkjet print 12″ x 18″
Artist Statement
I photograph gravestones sinking into the earth. I photograph the hazy sky, an unworn garment, sand covering a floor, land swallowing movement from train windows, light on a ceiling beam, and trees hidden in dense fog. In these photographs stone is impermanent, clothes disembodied, and land is indistinguishable from atmosphere. I found these images while searching for someone who lived four hundred years ago. I looked for one thing and found another. I went to the Netherlands to make a portrait-in-absentia of Baruch Spinoza, independent thinker and lens grinder. He reminded me of my reclusive grandmother. They were both Jews who practiced their religions nontraditionally. She practiced through social work, he practiced through philosophy and science. They were two unmoored outsiders. I photographed places Spinoza lived, walked, thought, and died — but the more I searched, the more obscure he became. Maybe he did not want to be found. I questioned: Can I have a relationship with an absent presence? Finally, I realized that another absent presence was all around me — the ocean. Dutch polder land, the primary location of my images, used to be ocean. Memory of the ocean remains. Here, sea birds fly over the landscape as if it is still ocean and gravestones sink back into the wet soil. I am photographing fragments, used-to-be’s, and in-between beings. In this shadowy, indeterminate place I found the dual absence and presence of the departed in the landscape. I embrace the richness of this mystery. Photography transforms physical experience into the ephemeral materials of light and shadow. The camera makes physical things into ghost-things. Absence and presence coexist. Photography, by its nature, explores these paradoxical facets.
Additional Info
Artist Website: hannahsubotnick.com
Instagram: @hannahsubotnick
Part of Growing the NetWorks
This artist was selected by a past NetWorks Rhode Island participant as part of Growing the NetWorks — a 2025 exhibition presented by WaterFire Providence, at the WaterFire Arts Center, celebrating peer-nominated artists from across Rhode Island. Learn more at waterfire.org/growingthenetworks
Highlighting the work of selected artists who have played vital roles in shaping the contemporary visual arts community in Rhode Island. This collection of brief video portraits provides a window into the lives, practices, and cultural contributions of professional artists.
