about the artist

Hannah Odum is a painter and photographer that specializes in ambiant landscapes. A Virgina native, she has lived in the mountians and marveled in their beauty her whole life.  She was educated at Radford University and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2024.


I paint landscape scenes influenced by weather. I use mostly oil and gouache paints for their layering capabilities and the oils' and medium malleability as they work together. My compositional inspiration comes from my photographs of Appalachian mountain scenery. I am interested in exploring the relationship between the immediacy of photos and the gradual, additive process of painting and the ability to infuse scenes with ambiance, energy, and depth.

I often depict landscapes altered by atmospheric conditions like wind, cold, fog, and clouds. These elements let me obscure and reveal parts of the image, creating an emotional aura. By balancing the revealing and concealing, I make the environment somewhat unknown, omitting elements like the sun to challenge the viewer's perception of time. My work reflects the contrast of my resistance to society's fast-paced advances and the steady, atavistic timeline found in nature. My paintings allow the ambiguous landscapes to exist in their own timeless atmosphere, free from the constraints of modern human-driven timekeeping.