Hannah Blank was born and raised in Sierra Madre. She attended the University of Delaware to obtain a BA in Art History and Art Conservation, as well as a MA in Art History, which gave her a deep appreciation for how historical context and materiality can enrich one's understanding of art. As a painter, she finds herself especially interested in portraiture, focusing on character, light, and contrast.

"Degrees of Separation" is a set of portraits that reference images collected from UCLA's Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, a set of photo-negatives from newsworthy events around Los Angeles that date from 1918 to 1990. The people inside these images are not too far from our neighbors. Removing the figures from their archival context invites the viewer to imagine a context of their own making.