Out of Office

HANNA WAVES

Hanna Waves is a contemporary Australian artist based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, known for expansive, minimalist fields of colour populated by a single hyper-realistic vignette. A former frontline paramedic and then strategist, she makes work driven by an obsession with the vulnerability of the human experience. Every figure is measured against her index finger and scaled proportionally to the piece's size, creating a distinct tension on the canvas. By placing these small human rituals within vast horizons, she sets the immensity of a feeling against the smallness of the person having it, inside a large, open world, leaving intentional space for the viewer to feel and experience. Large worlds for small moments.

WHY OUT OF OFFICE MATTERS

'Out of Office' is the title work of the collection. It is the largest of the five and the only piece offered at auction. The other four are priced. This one, the artist says, she couldn’t price, so she isn’t going to. It carries everything the practice is built on:

A moment of complete freedom and liberty, represented at human scale within the vast fields of nature. An expansive field of green lake held completely flat, juxtaposed with a highly detailed person finally taking a leap of faith. Use of her signature index finger rule - where each figure is the size of the artist's index finger, at a constant scale across her entire body of work, ensuring the vast fields don’t shrink the vignettes but instead hold them and create space for the rest of their story. It is also the painting the collection was made to arrive at. Her 2026 collection, Out of Office, translates the digital absences of modern working life (a board meeting, do not disturb, left on read, no service) into physical landscapes: a dawn surf, figures resting on loungers, a vintage Riva, a dying campfire, and a diver leaving a jetty. Every title is simultaneously an office phrase and a literal scene of physical absence. The whole concept of Out of Office came from the feeling of complete freedom and grounding in your intuition and sense of self.The other four are places you go to be out of office. This one is taking the leap and leaving.

THE WORK

Water and air cover most of the canvas in tones adjusted and warmed until they evoked the exact feeling of the moment your mind is made up; the artist was chasing a feeling, not a colour. From across the room, Out of Office is two tones of lake green meeting on a horizon, and a curious diagonal falling into a space of green that invites you to stay a while. Walking closer, a long jetty emerges with a diver mid-air, strong in mind and body, whose fingertips just touch the water.

Above the waterline is the life she’s leaving behind and below is the one she’s choosing. The diver exists in the exact moment where you hold your breath with courage and swallow your fear. In the artist’s words: “I held myself back from my true calling for a decade and a half. Too scared to really consider it, if I’m honest. But then I realised you don’t need permission. Whatever it is you’ve been standing on the jetty about for years, you can take that leap. You hold your breath, the water is only cold for a few seconds, then you’re swimming.”

The painting works as a dichotomy: above and below, before and after, the life you’re standing in and the one you’re about to be in. Staying and going. The certainty of the jetty, contrasted with the hesitance when standing on it. The cold of the water, then its softness. It is not a picture of a dive. It is a painting about the moment of deciding, then following through with all your heart, mind, and conviction.

FOR COLLECTORS

The painting is unique and offered for the first time. The collection’s other originals are priced and released to a first-access list of over fifteen thousand; the studio videos of this work were seen more than fourteen million times in the month before the auction opened. Prints of the work exist in a time-limited edition closing 8 November 2026; the original is one of one.

Hanna Waves works in structured, named collections released on a fixed schedule with only fifteen original pieces released to date. Her debut collection sold out globally to collectors across multiple countries. She paints with the heart of a paramedic and the mind of a strategist.

MORE ABOUT HANNA WAVES

Two worlds, neither was hers

Hanna Waves spent a decade in two completely different environments: on the road as a frontline paramedic during people’s most vulnerable moments, and at the executive level as a strategist improving that same system. She was successful in both, but neither felt like hers. Those years left her with an internal archive of the extent of human emotion and experience, and a distinct perspective that the world is vast and complex, and the simple, intimate moments are what matter and carry us through every season.

In 2026, she left her career to commit to her studio practice full-time. Her debut collection sold out globally within forty-eight hours to collectors across multiple countries.

Space first, moments last

Her process is defined by strict physical restraint and deep emotional concept. Each canvas begins as one or two flat fields of earth tones. Into this expanse she introduces a single vignette at the scale it occupies within this large world. Painted under studio lights with ultra-fine brushes, every work follows three rules: the figures are scaled to her index finger, they are in nature, and they never break the fourth wall. They remain entirely absorbed in their own moment, leaving the viewer as a silent observer or participant.

Collections built around a feeling

Hanna Waves works in structured, named collections released on a fixed schedule. Her 2026 collection, Out of Office, translates the digital absences of modern working life (a board meeting, do not disturb, left on read, no service) into physical landscapes: a dawn surf, figures resting on loungers, a vintage Riva, a dying campfire, and a diver leaving a jetty.

Scarcity and the ledger

To protect the integrity of her primary and secondary markets, the studio limits production to a select number of originals each year. Print editions are strictly time-limited and permanently closed after a single window, ensuring they are never reprinted. Every original is registered in the studio’s archival ledger and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Original works travel with a hand-made provenance card on premium cotton rag. As the artist notes: “The water doesn’t get warmer the longer you wait.”