Allison Janae Hamilton

Statement

My artwork features uncanny subjects and surreal scenes that blend the epic with the everyday and the disturbing with the delicate within the expanse of the rural American south. The chief concern of my practice is land: I am curious about the ways that the physical environment of the American south contributes to the region's own social construction. I am likewise interested in the role of landscape in the conception and figuring of "Americana." In my treatment of land, flora and fauna are central protagonists, not background actors, in the unfolding of the south's historic and contemporary narratives. My work is accordant with Walker Evans's premise that "southerners are haunted by their own landscape." In this way, I create unsettling figurations that engage the social and political concerns of today's changing southern terrain, such as land loss, environmental justice, climate change, and sustainability. Each work contains narratives that are pieced together from folktales, family lore and overheard gossip, hunting and farming rituals, African-American nature writing, and Baptist hymns. In this vein, my art practice centers imagination to meditate on disruption and magic in the seemingly mundane routines and rituals of rural life. Drawing from these references, I imagine what an epic myth looks and feels like in rural terrain. Most intimately, I draw upon mythologies passed down to me through my own relationship with the region — I was born in Kentucky, raised in Florida, and my maternal family's farm and homestead lies in the rural flatlands of western Tennessee.

The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm Love is like the sea... White Ouroboros I and White Ouroboros II Seven Creatures

The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm
2018
18 ft. x 36 in. x 36 in. (548.6 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm)
Painted tambourines and steel armature

Installation View
Indicators: Artists On Climate Change, Storm King Art Center. May 19 – November 11, 2018

The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm comprises a towering stack of tambourines on an island in one of Storm King’s ponds. The installation was inspired by 'Florida Storm,' a 1928 hymn written by Judge Jackson about the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, as well as accounts of the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane, referenced in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Both storms devastated the state of Florida, the latter killing thousands of black migrant workers who were buried in unmarked mass graves. The work contemplates how climate-related disasters can expose existing social inequities and how affected communities contend with this twofold devastation. A performance will activate the installation at Storm King, involving musicians presenting a soundscape arranged by Hamilton and inspired by the original 'Florida Storm.'

Love is like the sea...2023
12' H, 10' H, 5.5' H, Base: 26"h x 59" w x 33" d
Bronze

Love is like the sea...(2023) takes its title from Zora Neal Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, set against the backdrop of the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, which devastated the state of Florida. The monumental sculpture—three columns of stacked tambourine forms cast in bronze—addresses the intersection of environmental crisis and cultural history. Hamilton's tambourine towers have, since 2014, explored these connections through the use of discarded tambourines, natural materials, and other found elements. Love is like the sea... is the first of Hamilton's tambourine towers constructed in bronze, representing a new chapter in her long standing work with outdoor sculpture.

White Ouroboros I and White Ouroboros II
2022
White Ouroboros I dimensions: 8 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
White Ouroboros II dimensions: 8 1/2 x 38 x 39 inches

 Seven Creatures
2017
Foam, mixed media Dimensions variable From the exhibition Allison Janae Hamilton: Pitch On view at MASS MoCA March 25, 2018 – March 17, 2019
  Floridawater I Garden Mask IV
  Floridawater I
2019
Archival pigment print 24 x 36 inches 61 x 91.4 cm
 Garden Mask IV
2023
10 ½ W x 12 D x 13 H inches vintage fencing mask, wooden flowers, dye, resin