HELENA HAMILTON

P1010958 copy

Medium – Black acrylic on wall Duration – 3 hours

Helena Hamilton To Whom It May Concern (IEQUALSYOUEQUALSWEEQUALSME) Late Night Art 1st April 2010 PS2, Donegal Street, Belfast

April 2010: HELENA HAMILTON AT PS2: A window into the streaming consciousness of Hamilton's performance at PS2 in Belfast's Cathedral Quarter.

Inside the space, the artist plays with paradox, a 'public private' performance transfixes the audience, like a meditative practice or cathartic ritual, the intimacy of the act charges the atmosphere, hypnotising the audience as the head-covered Hamilton negoiates the white cube walls and floor with her black tub of paint.

Letters...words...sentences, overlapping and meandering, executed in a spontaneous fashion, the text pours from the mind of the performer. The areas of wall and floor worked up the heaviest, through multiple layerings of paint, creates dynamic concentrations of black, seeming at once to organically expand outwards towards the white but also contract inwards, withdrawing...like a black hole in space. Only this time it is not light and matter that is being absorbed, but rather the words and thoughts of the artist, with the blackest areas containing the heaviest overlaying of memory. The earliest traces of initial marks become concealed beneath the thicker layers of paint. A tension exists between two worlds, eluding to dualities of existence...somewhere in-between, oscillates the artist.

Brendan Jamison

Text copyright Brendan Jamison, 12 August 2010

Helena Hamilton To Whom It May Concern (IEQUALSYOUEQUALSWEEQUALSME) Opening: Thursday 22 April 6-8pm PS2, Donegall Street, Belfast

HelenaHamiltonfinal

In the past three weeks, Helena Hamilton’s intense drawing project developed in different stages: from an initial drawing performance, blindfolded and with soundproof headphones in front of a vast audience, to a week long and totally isolated concentration on a complete wall drawing. A work phase the artist calculated as “5 days, 23 hours and 15 minutes, reflecting the 8595 days since her birth made equivalent to minutes (i.e. 1 day equals 1 minute)”. Throughout this time she did not speak or use any modern form of communication, creating a text-painting of everything that came to mind. The outcome are signs, letters, messages; marks which cover the space in a mentally highly charged yet ornamental and beautiful way. Her site specific work seeks to transform the space into a playground of sentimental questions concerning the role play of the civilized individual through the investigation of themes such as censorship, love, loss, hope, identity and originality. The title ‘To Whom It May Concern (IEQUALSYOUEQUALSWEEQUALSME)’ now seems rhetorical: Helena Hamilton filled the space with meaning and ordering lines, an all-over effect which will have a lasting impact on the viewer.

Peter Mutschler

For more information on Helena Hamilton see: www.helenahamilton.com/Contact: pssquared@btconnect.com or 07733457772Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1-5pm, Sun 10am- 4pmThe project continues till 25.April 2010 PS is supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
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