The student art studios photographed by Leonora Hamill run counter to the strain of individualism permeating the contemporary art world.
Hamill destroys the myth of the artist-hero working in isolation, returning to the essence of the artistic movements that have marked the history of art: emanating from each studio is not a presence but presences. She tries to photograph the studios just after the students have finished working, when their efforts can still be felt. The composition transforms the the tools, materials and sketches into ephemeral sculptures (hence the title of the series).
Without being topographical, her gallery of studios questions culture, sometimes universal, sometimes subjective, relying on common but misleading references. The bicycle wheels hanging like Duchamp’s readymades in one sculpture studio, and the Greco-Roman sculptures in at another, are not only features of a Western culture. They are alternatively polysemous and universal visual elements found as easily in Asia as in Europe.
In some ways, this series breaks down the myths that shape the rejection of the other, reviving a more altruistic kind of imagery.
Laurence Cornet
Leonora Hamill: Art in Progress
From February 15th to March 28th, 2013
Wilmotte Gallery at Lichfield Studios
133 Oxford Gardens
London W10 6NE
United Kingdom
