Portsmouth, NH- New Hampshire Art Association (NHAA) is pleased to present What We Leave Behind by artist Hallie Driscoll, an exhibition exploring the soft ways memory, place, and personal history shape who we are. Through layered mixed-media works incorporating book pages, dried flowers, fabric, embroidery, and wood, the exhibition reflects on what is carried forward and what is left behind—intentionally or not.
Using collected and altered materials that hold traces of lived experience, Driscoll creates works that exist between preservation and transformation. Book pages gathered during her time in Siena, Italy, appear throughout the exhibition, connecting the artist’s cultural heritage to a broader exploration of language, memory, and place. Botanical elements gathered in both Siena and her current rural New Hampshire home appear throughout the work, connecting past and present through forms that feel both delicate and enduring.
These materials function as both fragment and anchor, offering moments of familiarity while leaving space for personal interpretation. Driscoll uses found objects to create sculptures that evoke the feeling of a wistful memory, incorporating birch logs to draw viewers toward the words layered upon them and reflect on a tree that feels both recognizable to our location and deeply personal. Scrolls speak to the passage of time through their connection to human history, carrying written reflections that suggest storytelling and memory. Her body of work is layered with fresh flowers that allude to renewal and appreciation for the current moment. The exhibition invites viewers to move slowly through the space and reflect on their own relationships to memory and environment, asking: What do we hold onto? What do we release? And how do those choices shape the person we become?
Hallie Driscoll is a visual artist based in Swanzey, NH, who works in painting and mixed-media sculpture,received the Ewing Arts Award for 3D Visual Arts and was awarded a residency at Essere Residency in Siena, Italy. A turning point in her artistic journey was when she had a solo exhibition at —— that encouraged her to explore emotional depth. Drawing from childhood memories and the ongoing process of growth, her work balances vulnerability with resilience while examining impermanence and the rituals embedded in everyday life.
What We Leave Behind will be on view at the New Hampshire Art Association’s Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery, 136 State St, Portsmouth, NH, 03801, from June 3rd to 28th, with an opening reception on June 5th, 5-8 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 11 am to 5 pm, Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm, and Sunday from 12 pm to 5 pm.