July 26 – September 21, 2013
RECEPTION: Friday, July 26, 7pm – 10pm

GREYMATTER GALLERY
207 E. Buffalo St.
Suite 222
Milwaukee, WI 53202

Significant Other, the conceptual sequel to Patrick Earl Hammie’s 2008 project Imperfect Colossi, presents a female and a male figure locked in a physical dialogue, hefting weight, and relocating the perceptions of ruined and objectified bodies that recall and carry on complex legacies of suffering and struggle. Drawing on the emotive qualities of Romanticist painting and its use of heroic proportions to engage with political and humanistic expression, he imagines bodies as occasions for us to encounter difference toward considering their capacity for establishing new narratives. Perhaps more than any other form of image-making, figurative paintings have often been interpreted as a reflection of the values of period in which it is produced. Hammie’s work investigates the expectations built into this canonical genre, probing and dismantling the idealizing impulses that have historically shaped it. He focuses specifically in his practice on constructions of gender and race, putting pressure on these categories as a means of expanding understanding of identity.

Read our interview on Greymatter Gallery’s blog.