ARTISTS
Jane Hammond: Chocolate Cosmos, String of Pearls
Chocolate Cosmos, String of Pearls features mixed-media botanical assemblages composed of images acquired through a rigorous process of research and collection, yet arranged improvisationally. Hammond's hyper-detailed compositions probe the relationships between ecology, observation, and knowledge. Through a system of images shaped by the poetics of language, Hammond produces lavish arrangements of vivid and fantastical forms drawn from the natural world. Using several printmaking techniques such as relief printing and linocut, as well as combining painting and drawing, Hammond鈥檚 compositions employ myriad methodologies. Hammond often prints from hand-made plates on painted and collaged grounds.
Hammond鈥檚 works draw on both found and personal photographs she has collected over many years. She recontextualizes these images, often dramatically altering color, scale, and resolution, and builds her arrangements based on symbolic and physical associations. Her botanical arrangements brim with flora and fauna from disparate species across continents and temporalities, resulting in bouquets that exist outside the realm of possibility. While beautiful and meticulously arranged, these are not traditional botanicals. Hammond鈥檚 works鈥攎ade up of both living and extinct flora and fauna鈥攑resent a plentitude both ravishing and increasingly threatened by ecological destruction.
Shaped by the aesthetics of post-minimalism in 1970s New York, Hammond avoided botanical subjects for decades, though an interest in the natural world was a throughline in her childhood, education, and later life. Of the work in Chocolate Cosmos, String of Pearls, Hammond has said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a different enterprise to make these botanicals now than it would have been 30 years ago because the environment from which all this plentitude emanates is now intensely jeopardized."
Hammond also has a keen interest in the history of material culture. She mines the traditions of ceramics, glass, and metalwork across the globe for her containers, as well as the world of artisanal papermaking for the handmade grounds she crafts for each piece. These unique compositions are made of many heterogeneous and often conflicting elements, yet ultimately resolve harmoniously. Hammond's rigorous compositional process involves constant readjustments of placement, scale, and color until she achieves a desired 鈥渉armony built from tension and difference.鈥� These tensions impart power and vitality to their final resolution. Hammond's works play with language, allegory, and games to invite the viewer into a mythical world blooming with an encyclopedic collection of images, where edification comes from searching and surprise.
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Chocolate Cosmos, String of Pearls features mixed-media botanical assemblages composed of images acquired through a rigorous process of research and collection, yet arranged improvisationally. Hammond's hyper-detailed compositions probe the relationships between ecology, observation, and knowledge. Through a system of images shaped by the poetics of language, Hammond produces lavish arrangements of vivid and fantastical forms drawn from the natural world. Using several printmaking techniques such as relief printing and linocut, as well as combining painting and drawing, Hammond鈥檚 compositions employ myriad methodologies. Hammond often prints from hand-made plates on painted and collaged grounds.
Hammond鈥檚 works draw on both found and personal photographs she has collected over many years. She recontextualizes these images, often dramatically altering color, scale, and resolution, and builds her arrangements based on symbolic and physical associations. Her botanical arrangements brim with flora and fauna from disparate species across continents and temporalities, resulting in bouquets that exist outside the realm of possibility. While beautiful and meticulously arranged, these are not traditional botanicals. Hammond鈥檚 works鈥攎ade up of both living and extinct flora and fauna鈥攑resent a plentitude both ravishing and increasingly threatened by ecological destruction.
Shaped by the aesthetics of post-minimalism in 1970s New York, Hammond avoided botanical subjects for decades, though an interest in the natural world was a throughline in her childhood, education, and later life. Of the work in Chocolate Cosmos, String of Pearls, Hammond has said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a different enterprise to make these botanicals now than it would have been 30 years ago because the environment from which all this plentitude emanates is now intensely jeopardized."
Hammond also has a keen interest in the history of material culture. She mines the traditions of ceramics, glass, and metalwork across the globe for her containers, as well as the world of artisanal papermaking for the handmade grounds she crafts for each piece. These unique compositions are made of many heterogeneous and often conflicting elements, yet ultimately resolve harmoniously. Hammond's rigorous compositional process involves constant readjustments of placement, scale, and color until she achieves a desired 鈥渉armony built from tension and difference.鈥� These tensions impart power and vitality to their final resolution. Hammond's works play with language, allegory, and games to invite the viewer into a mythical world blooming with an encyclopedic collection of images, where edification comes from searching and surprise.
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