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STATEMENT
As an artist I have found that process is a fundamental part of my work. In practice this means that I might have ideas about where my work is going, but often the physical process of the work informs what actually happens in my studio. I am interested in evoking sensation and making work which is corporeal in nature. While the figures and portraits may begin to point towards or suggest sentiment, it is important to me that the work is not sentimental but experiential.
Growing up in a small agricultural community in California, my exposure to cultural institutions was limited, at best. I have always been drawn to places and objects that are full of mystery. Some of my most significant visual influences were images I saw in church. While the religious aspect of my church experience was less pressing, the visual cues at church were what kept my attention. I am fascinated by shrines and ex-votos-devotional votive objects that families make to show love and respect. These objects inspire the type of physical intimacy that holds my artistic practice. Asian art is also a strong influence on my work. From Tibetan medical drawings to Buddhist sculptures, I find myself looking to ancient forms for inspiration. Gesture often plays a most prominent role for these artists, as it does for me, whether it plays out in a small aspect of the image or is its essence, as with the images of hands.
Layering is another essential aspect of my work. Whether this is seen or perceived as physical or contextual, my interest is in combining the literal and emotional qualities that are evoked through the physical process of layering. I begin by collecting ferns and other organic materials, transforming them through drawing and the printmaking process, creating images that marry the ferns with images of the body. These images reflect the uniqueness of individual hands, as well as reveal the tracing of the spirit. The process, in which the image itself is submerged in a tray of heated wax, metaphorically removes the image from the world of the living but paradoxically preserves it indefinitely. The images act as mechanisms to stop time, to document a moment in a person life, an open meditation on portraiture.
Valerie's work exists in a glimmer, in the periphery, slightly away or out of vision, in a kind of magical realm in the musty undergrowth at the edge of our gardens. She is graced with a knowledge and appreciation of enchantment. She works extensively in paper using repetitive images that unfold and reveal nuances. She unearths the deep-rooted connection between our bodies and the natural earth; the way things deteriorate and are reborn. By focusing on remnants and traces she creates a physical reliquary representing our ancestors and our lives in flux.
- Kiki Smith
BIO
Valerie Hammond is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and photographer, Hammond captures in her work the fluidity and transformationality of the mysterious and metaphysical realms of the human condition. Her work is found in public and private collections. She has exhibited in solo shows and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, New Zealand and India. Most recently she has exhibited at Littlejohn Contemporary Gallery, New York, NY; Walker Contemporary Gallery in Boston, Ma; Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, Bronx, NY in collaboration with IPCNY, New York, NY; Garson Baker Fine Art, New York, NY; and the Portsmouth Art Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She has just completed new print editions with Tamarind Press in New Mexico and Wildwood Press in St. Louis Missouri. Hammond is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, The lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant. She received her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley where she was awarded the Eisner Award. She currently teaches advanced printmaking at NYU and Columbia University.
Hammond's delicate drawings stem from childhood memories of a beloved fairy-painting, an illustration of an old English nursery rhyme, "Death of Cock Robin." While the poem, in which various birds prepare for the burial of a murdered friend, may have had larger political implications, Hammond links her drawings to personal themes of memory, youth and death, referencing, in particular, the loss of her mother. In the drawing, bats hover above flowers, birds mesh with butterflies. The natural world's cyclical disintegration and re-growth suggests a kind of universal story-telling, the seasons providing beginning and end. Hammond's glowing, red-orange ink is reminiscent of blood, the capillary-like stems and leaves reference the human body. Ethereal pencil lines counterbalance the red's viscosity, evoking a place where the material and immaterial collide.
- Maggie Wright
Chronological list of Selected Exhibitions:
2011
Printer/Publisher Artist/Printer Courtney Obata and Wildwood Press, Bonsack Gallery,
John Burroughs School, St. Louis, MO
A Printer's Spotlight/15 Years of Wildwood Press, Gallery, Gallery 210,
University of Missouri St Louis, St. Louis, MO
Threshold, Valerie Hammond, Littlejohn Contemporary Gallery, New York, NY
Papertails, 80 WSE Gallery, Curated by Valerie Hammond and Kiki Smith, NY, NY
IFPDA Print Fair, Tamarind Press new editions, New York, NY
2010
Hot Harvest: The Gowanus Studio Space 2010 Printmaking Fellows and Friends,
Brooklyn, New York
Drawings, curated by Katia Santibanez, Muriel Guepin Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Humanimal, Portsmouth Museum of Art, Portsmouth, NH
Aether, Valerie Hammond, Walker Contemporary, Boston, Mass
Propagating Eden: Uses and Techniques of Nature Printing in Botany and Art, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
Encaustics: Wax and Image, Westchester College Center for the Arts, White Plains, NY
2009
Kiki Smith and Valerie Hammond Etchings and Encaustic Drawings, Toots and
Magoo Gallery, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Off the Wall: Contemporary Installation, Manhattanville College, Purchase, New
York
2008
Valerie Hammond, Twilight contes de fees, Garson Baker Fine Art, NY
The Beast Within, Bowman Bloom Gallery, New York, NY
New Prints Fall 2008, ICPNY, NY, NY
E/AB Fine Print Fair, New Editions, The Brodsky Center, NY, NY
Propagating Eden: Uses and Techniques of Nature Printing in Botany and
Art, ICPNY, NY, NY
Peace, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
NEXT Art Fair, Cue Art Foundation, Chicago, IL
Art Chicago, Wildwood Press, Chicago, IL
Aqua Miami, Wildwood Press, Miami, Florida
2007
Corpo-real , Book as Body, Body as Book, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
The Big Draw, site-specific public drawing project at Teardrop Park, The Drawing Center, NY, NY
Ten Years of Wildwood Press, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont
Tease, Garson Fine Arts, New York, NY
Emily Dickinson Rendered, Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
Valerie Hammond Works in Progress, Wildwood Press, St. Louis, Missouri
Ether Valerie Hammond, Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
2006
Valerie Hammond, curated by Kiki Smith, The Cue Foundation, NY, NY
Colectiva Diciembre-Emero, Michel Soskine Inc., Madrid Spain
Hair, Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Valerie Hammond, M% Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
Art 212, M% Gallery, New York, New York
Valerie Hammond and Mary Mcfarland, NG Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand
Flow Art Fair, M% Gallery, Miami, Florida
2005
De Balthus a Zeller, Michel Soskine In., Madrid, Spain
Tracings, Valerie Hammond, Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Valerie Hammond/Kim Cridler; Tracings, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah
Scope New York, M% Gallery, New York, New York
Pulp, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
New Prints 2005/Spring Selected by Kiki Smith, International Print Center, NY, NY
Encaustic Works 2005, Sammuel Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, New York
2004
Means, RKL Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Valerie Hammond and Judy Pfaff, M% Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
Valerie Hammond, Port Gallery, Port Chalmers, New Zealand
Multiple Encounters, Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts, New Delhi, India,
Jawahar, Kala Dendra, Jaipur, Dala Akadeni, Goa, Dirla Akadeni of fine Arts, Calcutta
2003
Valerie Hammond, Memento, Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Meander, M% Gallery, Cleveland Ohio
Garden of Compassion, Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
2002
25th Small Works, 80 WSE Galleries, (Jury Prize) NY, NY
Yale Faculty Show, Norfolk, Connecticut
Small Packages, Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
Winter Show, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
2001
Work of Papers, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Memory, Brewery Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2000
Prints 2000, Holland Tunnel Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Waxing Poetic Encaustic Art in America, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey,
And Knoxville Art Museum, Knoxville, Tennessee
1999
Valerie Hammond and Lisa Lawley, The Panting Center, New York, New York
1998
Location, Kendall Fine Art, Hudson, New York
1997
The Altered Image, Islip Art Museum, New York
1996
A Sense of Order, The Painting Center, New York
1994
Woman's Drawings, Council of the Arts Gallery, Catskill, New York
1993
Group Show, Artist Space Gallery, New York
Gallery Artists, Galerie Caroline Corre, Paris, France
1991
Group Show, Mona Bismark Foundation, Paris, France
1989
Artists Books, Galerie Caroline Corre, Paris, France
1988
Valerie Hammond, J.L. Becker Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
Messages, Carlo La Magna Gallery, New York
1984
Disposable Art Show, Kamikaze, New York
The Fan Show, Jon Leon Gallery, New York
1983
Original Artists Books, Frankfurt, Germany
Prenez un livre dit-elle, Yerres, France
Books of American Artists, Galerie Caroline Corre, Paris, France
3rd Salon du Livre Grand Palais Museum, Paris, France
