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 The saturated colour disrupts the historical reference, pulling the devotional gesture into the present. The luminosity of the ink heightens the tension between fragility and persistence, decay and regeneration—themes central to her sculptural practice.

Produced in a strictly limited edition of 100, Magdelene Hands offers a concentrated encounter with Hannah Lees’ ongoing investigation into repetition, belief and new beginnings.

Learn more about artist Hannah Lees