TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY ANNOUNCES
AN INTRODUCTION | TOM HAMMICK
AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS AND PRINTS BY TOM HAMMICK
Exhibition Dates: 17 December – 29 January 2023
JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING – TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY is pleased to present An Introduction to Tom Hammick, a solo exhibition of work by artist Tom Hammick, on view December 17th, 2022 through January 29th, 2023. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, December 17th, from 5 - 7 pm. All are welcome.
An Introduction to Tom Hammick presents a selection of oil paintings and prints ranging from very small to rather monumental in scale. Hammick’s work probes the human condition in pulsating color, pushing the materiality of each medium into a contemplative narrative.
There is an undeniable oscillation between the quietude of the subject matter—a lone figure on the beach, three figures tending a garden–and the artist’s distinctly exuberant palette. We as viewers are left with an electrified stillness. Perhaps not incidentally, Tom Hammick loves poetry. He cites “The Moose” by Elizabeth Bishop as the equivocal wonderment he attempts to convey in paint: the sweet peas cling / to their wet white string / on the whitewashed fences; / bumblebees creep / inside the foxgloves, / and evening commences.
Bishop’s words expressively capture a moment in time not unlike Hammick’s painting Night Garden. A female figure, her back to us, contemplates a route to a small outbuilding, through what appears to be an inaccessible path of glowing flowers. It’s an unruly garden highlighted in electric technicolor; her path is uncertain, and she’s caught, like many of Hammick’s subjects, paused as though deep in thought.
Moving in and out of the domestic sphere, Hammick captures humans and their domiciles with expressive tenderness. “I suppose as a painter I’m interested in the poetic connection with home, and things being terrestrial (versus extra-terrestrial),” the artist says. He continues, “You know, I hope [the paintings are] about what it’s like to be human… Whether it’s a woman going out to her garden, or two women trying to build shelter, or a man, I suppose me, outside sort of a metaphor of my house or flat or studio, and the color of the night. All these figures kind of going around their daily life, nightly life, almost unaware of, or definitely unaware of, us watching them.”
Tom Hammick (b. 1963) is an artist living and working in London. He studied art history at the University of Manchester and later Fine Painting at Camberwell College of Art and NSCAD, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada. He has an MA in Printmaking, also from Camberwell, and until recently taught at Fine Art Painting and Printmaking for many years at The University of Brighton. Hammick is the proud father of three mostly grown children as well as a lover of music, theater, film, opera and poetry, all of which informs his work in a profound and tangible way. His work is held in various public and private collections worldwide, including The British Museum, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; New York Public Library, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Bibiothèque National de France, Paris; and The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Tom Hammick has been selected to join the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in New Haven, CT as an artist-in-residence in 2023.
