‘You don’t take anything for granted’: Tsering Hannaford’s left-hand turn
Tsering Hannaford’s art and livelihood hinged on her right hand. One bad pull-up sent the 11-time Archibald finalist back to the drawing board.
One day last August, Tsering Hannaford was going about her regular exercise routine when, in the middle of a pull-up, she felt pain in her right arm.
“Something just happened,” Hannaford tells InReview. “Something completely innocuous, that I’ve done for years.”
In one fleeting moment the 38-year-old had strained a tendon and damaged nerves in her wrist — the same one she had used to build a respected painting practice, known for crisply-observed realism that had seen her named as a finalist in the Archibald Prize every single year for the past decade.
As she bounced from one health professional to another, the prognosis stretched from two weeks to two months, then even longer.
“It was probably the biggest personal challenge I’ve faced in my life to this point,” she says. “Becoming an artist and dedicating your life to building a practice is something that takes many years and a lot of dedication… so to have an injury like this was really quite confronting.”
Before the injury Hannaford had never painted with her non-preferred left hand — she had no need to. But after a few tentative experiments in her life-drawing group, some friends suggested she try a self-portrait to capture the upheaval she was experiencing on and off the canvas. She reluctantly agreed — after all, she couldn’t ask anyone else to sit for her.
“It was very bad at first, and very clunky and hard to control,” she says. “I decided to look at it as a bit of a challenge.”
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Self-portraiture had been a recurring thread in Hannaford’s career; as a young artist with no public profile, she often turned to the mirror when willing sitters were hard to find.
It was a self-portrait, Object démodé, that saw her first named as an Archibald finalist in 2015, with another, Self-portrait after ‘Allegory of Painting’, scoring a Highly Commended nod in the 2020 competition (her most recent entry, 2024’s Meditation on seeing (portrait of Dad), captured her father, the celebrated artist Robert Hannaford).
As this new self-portrait took shape, Hannaford began to appreciate what was unfolding in front of her; her right hand was out of action, but her well-practised eye and years of experience hadn’t gone anywhere — they just needed to be channelled through a different limb.
Tsering Hannaford at work in her studio, before her injury. Photo: Jack Fenby
“In fact, some parts of my left-handed painting I think I prefer because they’re not as perfect as my right hand,” she reflects. “I’m not able to be quite as tight and polished, but there’s a little bit more of a painterly quality again, and a feeling of life in the painting.
“It felt like it brought me back to the early days of painting again — there was a freshness about it, a directness about it.”
This back-to-basics circuit-breaker proved vital to her recovery outside of painting as well.
"It felt like it brought me back to the early days of painting again — there was a freshness about it, a directness about it."
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“It wasn’t just work,” she says. “I couldn’t prepare meals, I had to change the way I dress myself, I had to stop playing sport. It was very disrupting to my whole life — it’s really hard not to use your right hand!
“So I thought if I just tried to use the left, it would take that pressure off mentally as well. And it really did. It helped a lot, psychologically.”
When the paint had dried, Hannaford did what she has done every year – she submitted it to the Archibald Prize.
“I was happy just to throw it in the ring and see how it went,” she says.
The finished painting, Meditation on time (a left-handed self-portrait), finds Hannaford gazing straight at the viewer, her left arm cradling the injured one, strapped up in a Velcro brace. A paintbrush sits between fingers on her left hand, while her right holds a white magnolia in full bloom.
Last week, it became Hannaford’s 11th shortlisted entry in the prestigious competition, selected from 904 submissions. She’s one of several artists based in South Australia to be recognised among this year’s 57 finalists, including Solomon Kammer, who was previously shortlisted in 2022 for The (disabled artist) hustle, a portrait of Adelaide playwright and actor Jamila Main.
Tsering Hannaford, Meditation on time (a left-handed self-portrait), oil on canvas. Photo: Jenni Carter / Art Gallery of New South Wales
Yankunytjatjara and Western Aranda artist Robert Fielding is also a finalist with Malatja malatja (into the future), which celebrates Fielding’s grandson Arnold Dodd, a master spearmaker (interestingly, Fielding’s painted portrait is accompanied by a kulata spear, crafted out of speargrass, kangaroo tendon and spinifex resin).
Kammer’s latest entry Kim, is a paint and charcoal work that captures fellow artist Kim Leutwyler, a seven-time Archibald finalist. The nude portrait was created after Leutwyler underwent gender-affirming surgery, a transformation that Kammer says was “beautiful to behold”.
“I think the Archibald Prize is a beautiful reflection of all Australians and the breadth of culture in this country,” Hannaford reflects. “So to have a little voice amongst all of that is a huge honour.”
While this latest shortlisting is also her 11th narrow miss — on Friday, Brisbane-based artist Julie Fragar was named winner for Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), a portrait of artist Justene Williams — Hannaford says this year’s recognition has already left a different impression. Soon after the finalists were revealed last week, people started reaching out to share their own experiences with injury and chronic pain.
“On a deeper level, I think it confronts us with our mortality,” she says. “I think as people, we avoid thinking about it — until something happens and we realise we’re quite fragile,” she says, noting the symbolism of the magnolia flower.
“And I think the flip side of that is, once you’ve been through something that that really impedes on your way of life, it does make you very grateful for what you do still have — and you don’t take anything for granted.”
The Archibald Prize 2025 exhibition runs from May 10 – August 17 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales