HELENA HAMILTON

Photo courtesy Michela Del Forno (4)

Photograph courtesy of Michela Del Forno www.micheladelforno.com

In Memory of I Celeste Prize Installation + Sculpture Category Awarded 3rd Place The Invisible Dog, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, New York December 2010

Northern Irish artist, Helena Hamilton (24) has been awarded third place in the Installation + Sculpture category of the international Celeste Prize competition, which was held in Brooklyn, New York 2010. Her work “To Whom It May Concern (IEQUALSYOUEQUALSWEEQUALSME)” exhibited at PS2, Donegall Street, Belfast in April 2010, was first selected by four international critics and curators from a pool of 1,733 art works to become one of the ten finalists in her category. The curators that selected Hamilton’s piece were, Kati Kivinen (Finland based critic/curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA), Paz Aburto Guevara (Berlin based critic/curator), Manon Slome (New York based critic/curator) and Yuliya Sorokina (Kazakhstan based critic/curator). At the opening night in New York each of the 50 finalist artists voted for their preferred piece in each of the 5 categories. Hamilton was later awarded third prize in her category (Installation + Sculpture).

The work that Helena Hamilton exhibited was a memory of her ephemeral, site-specific installation: “To Whom It May Concern (IEQUALSYOUEQUALSWEEQUALSME) – Remain Alive”. The memory (entitled “In Memory of I”) was made from canvas sewn together to make a 3m x 3m tent, hung from a gazebo frame. To the viewer, the outside of the tent almost resembles the back of a canvas or a make shift playhouse for a child, it is only until the viewer draws closer to the work that they find a zip on one of the four canvas walls, providing them with an entrance. When the zip is drawn upwards the canvas is opened and the viewer is invited to squeeze into this new world, clearly stamped with Hamilton’s monochrome, obsessive style of enigmatic words and symbols. The artist describes: “Using black paint I construct urban monochrome jungles built by hysteria and uncensored thoughts. These creations grow over walls, floors and ceilings just as black smog engulfs a city. Lines, words and symbols divide the blank space as streets, buildings and people divide a ground that once stood alone. Hypnotised by this municipal jungle and with a growing feeling of perplexity, the individual is led away to have a conversation with their soul...”