Ann Hamilton’s work is often a combination of performance, installation, and sculpture. I am drawn to her materials, particularly textiles, dyes and pigments, paper, and books. One of my favorite works is called “between taxonomy and communion” which deals with the relationship between animals and humans. In it the floor of a gallery is padded with wool then covered with glass tiles in the shape of but larger than microscope slides, which are connected with clear calking. Visitors walked over this shifting, delicate flooring while in the space, which contained a table covered in red oxide powder and laid out with hundreds (thousands?) of teeth from different creatures. Water dripped through the table, causing red dye to seep into the wool under the glass. The walls were imprinted with text from fables about animals. I read that Hamilton deals with interiors and exteriors, and the mouth plays a role in many of her peices, hence the teeth. I have used paper, books, and fibers in my work, for instance making a lion’s mane from book pages. In a work called “Malediction” books were cut into a continuous string of text and rolled into balls as a way to make text into a physical thing, which relates to the rolling of book pages into three dimensional shapes for the lion’s mane. There is an awsome book on Hamilton at the library with tons of images that I could not find online, so check that out. www.annhamiltonstudio.com/
-Meghan
