SOLO EXHIBITION
February 25 – March 26, 2016
RECEPTION: Thursday, February 25, 6pm – 8pm
ARTIST TALK: Saturday, March 19, 2 pm.
KRUGER GALLERY
3709 N Southport Ave.
Chicago, IL 60613
Kruger Gallery is very pleased to announce and invite you to “Inheritance,” a solo exhibition by Patrick Earl Hammie at Kruger Gallery in Chicago. This exhibition marks Hammie’s first solo show in Chicago, and collaboration with Kruger.
Since 2007, Hammie has drawn from art history and visual culture to examine ideas related to cultural identity, masculinity, beauty, and sexuality. His portrait and figural paintings often use allegory to implicate power structures, and question systems of racism and sexism. Early projects explored art’s role in representing and nurturing ideas such as masculine idealism and the visual legacy of the black male body. Hammie recalls, “I moved to Illinois from Connecticut in 2009, when I accepted a faculty position at the University of Illinois Urban-Champaign. In addition to national exhibitions and lectures, I’ve since participated in the Midwestern art scene and did a three months artist residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin. Through those experiences I gained a good survey of the region’s culture. I was affected by the rich history of movements like AfriCOBRA and institutions like Art Chicago (now Expo Chicago), and equally moved by the abundance of historical sundown towns and proportionally small numbers of diverse voices throughout the region.”
“I was informed by traditional representations of women and people of color in art, and present effects of institutional exclusion of minority groups from authorship of their cultural and political narratives.”
When Hammie returned to his studio from Kohler in September 2011, he began production on paintings that question inherited visual expectations of historically marginalized people, and work to reorient how meaning is made around those bodies. Hammie states, “I was informed by traditional representations of women and people of color in art, and present effects of institutional exclusion of minority groups from authorship of their cultural and political narratives. The communal environment at Kohler encouraged me to collaborate more; I worked with studio assistants, art historians, and museum directors on this new direction. In contrast to my previous projects, which featured a minimalist depiction of single male figure, this project Significant Other presents male and female figures locked in a physical exchange.” Paintings like Nadir from 2012 feature a commanding woman rotating a reclined man’s body to his side. Constructing moments where traditionally masculine and feminine strengths are conflated in the woman’s actions while the man’s body is vulnerable to public critique, Hammie introduces the woman as an active authority and relieves the man from macho performance.
There will be an opening reception on Thursday, February 25 from 6 to 8 pm at the gallery, and an artist talk Saturday, March 19 at 2 pm. The gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 6 pm or by appointment. For additional information, visit www.krugergallerychicago.com or call 312.995.0776.