Somer Hahm is an interdisciplinary artist based in Fairbanks, Alaska, working on the ancestral lands of the Tanana Dene peoples. Her practice is informed by her roles as caregiver, community builder, and educator, and spans painting, drawing, soft sculpture, murals, interactive mixed-media installations, and public art.

Using locality, relationships, and everyday gestures as points of departure, Hahm explores the liminal spaces of domestic labor, maternal impulse, and belonging. Engaging the tension between “hi” and “lo” art, she works with humble hardware-store materials to elevate the ordinary while questioning ideas of value and permanence.

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Hahm is the founder and creative director of the Far North Quilt Trail Project, a statewide creative placemaking initiative that builds on the tradition of American patchwork. By installing painted quilt patterns across Alaska, the project makes public art more accessible while expanding the possibilities of where painting can live.

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She holds an MFA cum laude in Visual Arts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (2008) and a BFA cum laude in Visual Arts from the University of Montana (2005). She is currently an adjunct professor of drawing and painting at the University of Alaska and teaches at The Folk School of Fairbanks.

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Hahm’s work has been exhibited widely in Alaska and beyond, including at the Anchorage Museum, the Bear Gallery, the Lemonade Stand, Well Street Art Company, and the University of Alaska Museum of the North. She has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, including the 2020 Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Award, a 2022 Adaptation and Innovation Grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2021 Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival “Artist of the Year” Award, and multiple Bunnell Street Arts Center Travel Grants.

 

Her public artworks include murals and barn quilts created in partnership with institutions such as the Anchorage Museum, FAST Planning + Bloomberg Philanthropies, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Experiment Farm, and the Cook Inlet Housing Authority.

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Residencies include the Anchorage Museum SEED Lab (2023), the University of Alaska Experiment Farm (2022), Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge (2020), and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Her work has been featured in Alaska Magazine, Edible Alaska, FORUM: Alaska Humanities Forum, Golden Heart Magazine, and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and she has been a guest speaker for organizations including the University of Alaska and the Alaska Humanities Forum.

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Through her art making, teaching, and community projects, Somer Hahm cultivates connection between people, place, and tradition—bringing contemporary painting practices into conversation with everyday life.