Nadir | Oil on Canvas | 42" x 60" | 2012

Artist Statement: Perhaps more than any other form of image-making, figurative painting is often read as a mirror of the time in which it is made; the canvas might be uniquely valued as a type of sociohistorical document. Exploring the tension between power and vulnerability, my paintings question historical constructions of gender and race to expand the filters through which identity is understood. Examining how male artists have presented themselves and the nude, my works symbolize my shadow-selves and move towards aspects of representation that have been historically skewed, are contemporarily taboo, or underrepresented.

Patrick Earl Hammie (b. in 1981, New Haven, Connecticut) is best known for his monumental portraits that use body language and narrative to reconfigure inherited conceptions of ideal beauty and heroic nudity. Hammie earned his BA from South Carolina’s Coker College in 2004, and his MFA from the University of Connecticut in 2008. In 2009 he was an artist in residence at Wellesley College, supported by the Alice C. Cole Fellowship in Studio Arts. In 2011 he was an artist in residence at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, supported by an award from Alliance of Artists Communities. Hammie is currently an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to exhibiting, he maintains an active speaking schedule as a public lecturer, visiting artist, panelist, and critic. He has received several awards and recognitions, including the Tanne Foundation award, Midwestern Voices and Visions award, Award of Excellence from the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago, Arnold O. Beckman Research Award and a Dave Bown Projects Award. His work is featured in What the Body Says: Power and Vulnerability, (Poet/Artists Magazine, 2011), Figure, Face, Identity, (Sprocketbox Entertainment, 2011) and From Motion to Stillness, (Poets/Artist Magazine, 2013).