I’m a freelance artist and creative facilitator based in Exeter, UK.
I enjoy making luminous, expressive illustrations using ink, marbled paper, digital techniques and hand lettering.
I work on all kinds of illustration commissions, but an area I’m particularly interested in is mental health and wellbeing. I come from a background of working in arts and health, where I spend my time running events and conferences that are beneficial for people’s health and wellbeing, facilitating discussions about lived experiences of mental health, and hosting a podcast with artists and practitioners exploring diverse approaches to arts-for-health practice.
I am actively interested in working with academics to help bring research to life, and using creativity to share ideas with wider communities beyond academia, whether that’s through running co-production workshops or designing something more bespoke where I can support project partners to playfully and meaningfully engage with each other.
I’m fascinated by the specificity and complexity of the stories we tell about our lives, and a major interest of mine is psychoanalysis. In 2020 I completed an Introduction to Clinical Psychoanalysis course at the Society for Social and Critical Psychoanalysis to discover what a critical psychoanalytic perspective might bring to my illustration practice.
I am also interested in exploring the boundaries of what illustration can be, through engaging with emerging research. I guest-edited the 2020 edition of the Journal of Illustration and in 2019 I organised the 10th International Illustration Research Symposium 'Illustrating Mental Health'. I am a practice-led researcher and recently completed an MA in illustration which was research-focused.
You’ll often find me scampering around campus at the University of Exeter, where I am a visiting fellow with the Global Systems Institute and where I also teach Medical Students how harness the power of their own creativity.
If you want to hear about what I’m up to, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter ‘The Slow Burner’ on Substack.
WORK WITH ME
I work freelance and am available for:
Illustration (editorial, advertising, publishing, research - contact me about your project)
Design (logos, reports - see here for examples)
Creative engagement and dissemination of research (I can work with you to help bring your ideas alive for audiences)
Creative Facilitation: I offer sessions using the Co-Production Oracle that can be tailored to suit any scale from individuals, to small teams, or multi-partner projects.
Arts/Culture Project Management
Illustrations are priced according to an appropriate license fee for your project; Design and other creative work is priced according to a day rate.
TESTIMONIALS
My team and I had a truly fantastic experience working with Hannah on a series of illustrations that complemented a qualitative research paper on shame in medical students. She was easy to work with, highly reliable and communicative, open to our input and direction, and possessing a mastery of her artistry. We were truly blown away by the series of 4 illustrations she created and have received high praise when presenting them publicly. I can't endorse Hannah strongly enough, and we will definitely be working with her again.
Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Duke University at The Shame Conversation
We commissioned Hannah to produce a series of illustrations for a booklet that was co-created with new fathers on the topic of fatherhood and mental health. The booklet was designed to normalise conversations about fatherhood and mental health, especially in the context of the pandemic. Hannah completely understood the brief and brought a huge amount of imagination to it. The communication between ourselves and Hannah was clear and efficient and ultimately Hannah delivered a series of illustrations that were far better than we could have imagined. Hannah was sensitive towards the subject matter and responded to the material with nuance and care. I would highly recommend Hannah for any role in which a creative approach to communicating topics of health are required.
Director at Alright Mate? CIC
Hannah worked in collaboration with our director to develop concepts and ideas for a series of films about domestic abuse. Hannah is hugely talented, full of ideas and great to work with.
Director at ForMed Films
Qualifications
Masters in Illustration (Distinction), Plymouth College of Art, 2019.
Awards
Principal’s Commendation, Plymouth College of Art, 2019.
Publications
Mumby, H, 2020, ’Editorial’, The Journal of Illustration, vol. 7, nos. 1-2, pp. 3-7 (full article available to read online)
Mumby, H, 2020, ’A Psychoanalytic Approach to Illustration’, The Journal of Illustration, vol. 7, nos. 1-2, pp. 39-66 (please contact me for access)
‘Psychoanalytic Illustrations’ The Kenyon Review (Online), March-April 2020 edition
EXHIBITIONS
On the Other Side of the Partition, I Suddenly Remember - Plymouth College of Art, 2019
Be Inspired (Exeter Illustrators group exhibition) - The Welcome Cafe, Exeter, 2018