Magdalene Hands, 2019

In Magdelene Hands, artist Hannah Lees draws on the distinctive gesture of the penitent Mary Magdalene as depicted in paintings by Titian and El Greco. Isolated from its original narrative context and repeated across the composition, the hand becomes less illustrative and more meditative, a fragment of embodied language suspended in time.

The work forms part of Hannah Lees’ wider exploration of hermitage and pilgrimage, where retreat, repetition and quiet devotion become contemporary modes of reflection. Through the recurrence of the gesture, the print evokes cycles of constancy and mortality: endings that carry within them the possibility of renewal.

Lees makes deliberate use of the vibrant neon inks characteristic of Risograph printing. The saturated colour disrupts the historical reference, pulling the devotional gesture into the present. 

In risograph printing, each colour is printed as a separate pass through a risograph machine — a stencil-based duplicator that presses organic soy inks into the paper. Risograph inks are naturally vibrant — they are renowned for their vivid colours and evident textures. The inks are transparent so layers build to create more colours. Slight shifts in registration and a soft grain make every impression subtly unique.

Magdalene Hands is printed on Olin natural white 170gsm, an uncoated, FSC-certified stock whose gentle warmth lets the colours glow. The edition is strictly limited to 100 and will never be reprinted. All prints were produced at the London Centre for Book Arts.