I just had a dance since later solo exhibition Wild as the result of many news of planning and hard work celebrating the beauty of animals in the wild and emphasising their textures, these works have all been hand carved. 140 litres of paint have gone into them and they are all in Hannah's very own unique style. It is so great to have you back on the Cafe Hannah. Welcome. Welcome. Yeah, my god, just brilliant. I've been watching on Instagram, going through the development of all of this and you've just been working so hard. So congratulations for starters. Thank you so much. You're Father Head, a game reserve in South Africa. Is this where the passion came from? Definitely stemmed from that. My first trip to South Africa was when I was nine and I just fell in love with animals and it's kind of been a development since the end. And he passed away two years ago to me. So has this had any sort of bearing on what you've decided to do now? Yeah, this shows I could dedication to him in the time that, you know, I spent with him on the game farm. It was just such a beautiful place to be and the animals roaming and I spent hours walking around that place. He'd be very proud of you. I hope so. Now he will be in beautiful work and I just say, I mean, I've seen some clips and it just looks insane. So good luck for tonight's opening. I'm super excited. How long has it taken to put it all together? This particular show, five years ago, I had a show at All Press Studio and I just, after that, there was 50 small works. I was like, I want to go large and it's taken about five years to get there, but I'm back there and I'm doing it. So eight large scale works, 140 litres have been laid onto these boards and I've just carved them away. So how much is 140 litres of paint, like compared to a house? That's a, that's a house painter. Yeah, it's like, you're talking like 10 litre panels at the worst, 14, 10 litre panels at the same time. That's a lot of paint. That's a lot of paint. It's a lot of paint. And you had a solo show last year didn't you as part of art week, which was wild in the making. Was that sort of like a work in progress? I wanted to show, and she and my journey of how I carve, because it's uniquely carved, no one else really does this in the world. So, yeah, people could come into the gallery at an endemic world and see me working on them. So, and then now I show the full show, all of them finished and they get to see them finished. And how important is that feedback? You know, people sometimes I guess are honest and give you opinions. It's quite incredible how honestly people are. I'm like, you just take it as a grain of soul. Most of it's positive. It really is really positive. And people fall in love with just how it's made and the dedication that goes into it. But not everyone can fit a two and a half metre zebra on their wall. So, just I want to open up that art market to just coming and viewing artwork. It's not in a gallery or a museum where people aren't welcome. And so, I just made it really welcome. It's nice and relaxed. I want to know what goes into the making of them, because you paint, don't you say? It's sort of a layer of paint, then another layer of paint. How many layers? Five weeks of layering. So, after 70 layers go on these boards. And then all different colours. Well, in the leopard it's four colours. So, like, and then each colour has about 16 or 17 coats. And then you carve down to the different colours. That's correct. You could mark it up quite easily, couldn't you? I can't go back and fix it. I'm human. I make mistakes for sure. Oh no. I'll tell you what, I just saw the leopard on screen. So, let's take a look at some more and you can talk us through them. Okay, come on. This is the polar bear. Yeah, so, I mean, this show is about just bringing awareness to how many amazing creatures there are in this planet. So, they're not all African, but there's a lot of African-themed animals in this show. So, yeah, polar bear carved into, for a 13 litres of paint. Wow. How big would that be? That's nearly two metres long. That's huge. But 1.5 metres. And all done with tiny, tiny little tiny chisels. Oh. This is a greater cudo. This is into 17 litres of paint. So, 65 layers layered up and then just hand-chipped away. 65 layers. Yeah. So, it's about 1.8 metres long. You can see me kind of like, in comparison to how big the works are. I'm using that technique, you know, what sort of texture and dimension does it give the best? It's basically like a large lino cut. You just, you did lino cutting, yes. You did lino cutting. I did lino cutting, but my lino cutting did not look like that. You could technically print from these. You could, but I don't. So, I show the woodblock themselves. Right. So, I create my own lino by layering up the layers. So, it's very acrylic-based. This is the piece I did when I was 21 on my Dad's Game Farm, which is actually flowing back. And I'm going to show that in the show. So, you can see the comparison from when I was 21 to now. So, how did you develop your technique? I mean, it's quite unique, isn't it? It is. I mean, trial and error when I was at university, just layered up a whole bunch of paint onto boards and by accident. Too many layers and got carving. So, I was carving into wood, and then the paint's kind of an added layer. So, it's built up from there. Now, you've tried me as a bit of a perfectionist. So, when do you know? When do you know it's finished? When does Hannah sit back and go, oh, hum, please, this is done. Don't put another touch on the head. Well, I used to just carve. So, I used to layer and carve. Now, I actually work back into them. So, the horses you will have seen before actually have three layers of resin dripped on top of them to kind of create the water, making it look really wet. So, I mean, now I just add a whole number layer and work back into it and do all these things to really bring them to life. That's not even finished that piece there. That's kind of like a couple of weeks ago. So, hang on, so, you're up and tonight. I'm up and tonight. I'm up and tonight. You're on the wall. So, actually, you guys have some delicious plants here. Marked from higher plants, dropped up a whole jungle of tropical palms. So, you're going to walk into the gallery, palms are up, since the claimants have provided a beautiful furniture. Oh, wow. So, you can sit amongst them, drink in a sweater, my T&E, have a glass of wine and appreciate the art. Sounds beautiful. Do you have an absolute favourite in the show? Ah, whoa. That all your babies. I think the horses that we saw before, like, that's the biggest work of ever done. So, 34 litres of paint really pushed myself and my technique and all that. And so, yeah, I'm proud of that. But all of them are amazing. Like, I'm proud of them. Yeah. And Kiwi's a very supportive of local artists. Yeah, they are. Is it hard in this country that you get them to spend money? It's a little yes. Yes, yes. I mean, they're not that old. But the nice thing is, for the first time, I'm actually making prints of the carvings. I've never done that before, so I'm making either limited edition prints of large prints, or you can get an A3 of an unlimited print. So, you can come in and get a print for $100 and take some of that. Oh, yeah. Or some of this makes it more. Oh, thanks. Hannah's my friend. I'm sorry to keep you about it. I missed it a lot of times. Thanks, Mal. Thank you, Hannah. Hannah Jensen's latest solo exhibition, Wild Takes Face in Auckland from today, until the 27th of April, you can check out Hannah's website for details and to see more of her work as well. Yeah, make sure you do that. Go and see what they like the largest. Oh, indeed. I'll be there until we meet there. I'll be there until we meet there. Because we'll be looking after you.