Rose Hamm

Constellations

2D Studio Art - Painting & Drawing

Constellations of grease pencil drawings, writings, and geometric motifs center around dark renditions of the Ijams’ barn quilt. The orbiting drawings act as documentations of time, place, and the human hand, as well as filters of external stimuli — light, movement, sound — transcribing them into gesture. Integrating the influence of illuminated manuscripts through decoration, recipe cards begin to treat the mundane as sacred. The geometric motifs converse with the local landscape through playing with renditions of the “Garden Walk” barn quilt at Ijams Nature Center, following the desire to be geographically grounded. While the drawings act as historical documentation, the paper’s fragile materiality and natural fiber ironically lend themself to disintegration.

Textiles hold significance to me as intimate indexes of the human body and as domestic artifacts one values enough to store and mend. In patchworking I often integrate passed-down or second-hand materials as an acknowledgment of their inherent value and a redemption of something neglected into a place of belonging.

The creation of a small, enclosed space through body, color, or scale acts as emotional regulation and management of stimuli. Individually, the scale of each piece fits between the length of one’s shoulders or ribcage, and when held, one's head and shoulders fold over the pieces as if in a half fetal position. The posture of the holder or the close approach of an upright viewer creates a small physical space within the negative space of the body and the object of observation.

The black paintings act as centers of gravity, balancing the drawings into the form of an altar. The paintings explore how colors form the feeling of an enclosed, low-stimuli space that borders between comfort and anxiety. The contracting of the body into a small space holds the inverses of protection and maladaptive isolation. Drawing upon the black paintings of Francisco Goya and the spiritual diagrams of Hilma af Klint, Constellations plays with marrying the emotionally corrosive with the healing.