While stools provide us with numerous usages, they are utility items on which we once sat as children, stepped on to reach atop a closet and used as working side-tables. By taking a classic painted wood stool and replacing one of its legs with an extended metal wheel, prompts the notion of an extreme upgrade - an evolutionary leap of convention. At the same time the petite aesthetic of the “Begin with a Spin” stool stirs our affection for all things small and cute. The surprise of an added outsized wheel, like a child wearing outsized shoes - only adds to our affection for the playful.
>>Side with Another Side
Like a wilted flower, its head bent over, this table presents it’s top flipped over 180°, making its usable surface its underside - the table’s stem arching over. Imprinted on the table’s stem the message; “SIDE WITH ANOTHER SIDE” suggesting to the user, as they place their tea atop its surface – to re-consider their allegiances or conventions – to switch teams – to turn from black to white, from left to right, to make a switch that defies rationale
Like a wilted flower, its head bent over, this table presents it’s top flipped over 180°, making its usable surface its underside - the table’s stem arching over. Imprinted on the table’s stem the message; “SIDE WITH ANOTHER SIDE” suggesting to the user, as they place their tea atop its surface – to re-consider their allegiances or conventions – to switch teams – to turn from black to white, from left to right, to make a switch that defies rationale
I’ve Been Cheated by You - is a piece that connotes the banalities of the matriarchal condition: family preserve vs individual ambition, boredom vs lust and eroticism, self-congratulations vs entitlement, satisfaction vs regret.Designed as the righteous place for the prized family silverware, this buffet / dresser made from colored glass and stainless steel is a transparent showcase for what we materially value the most and it’s provocative folly.
>> Illusions Perdues – Lost Illusions
Taken from the title of the French writer Honoré de Balzac’s famous epic, “Illusions Perdues”. This piece calls for the abandonment and or loosening of personal integrity - and crystallizes the duplicity of competing social standards, metaphored in the table’s broken glass. Found in one of the tables eight compartments is a child’s broken instrument, adding kitsch to shattered folly.
Visual Ritual is about shifting the way we see the familiar - employing visual devices that present illusion, flashing contrasts and movement. A mix of abstraction and subdivision - provocative and loud, Robert Hammond's quest is one for new aesthetics.
Paintings
Outlined by thick curved metal profiles large cartoon faces and figures contain montaged imagery behind polished glass surfaces. At first whimsical and cute - on second look you are peering through these figures into pulsating montages of dripping paint, concentric line patterns and smeared chalk boards. At play is a marriage of optical patterns, corrugated space and unfocused images - visual devices that create an overall moving rhythm with their outer curved metal borders.
Domestic Metaphors
Turning furniture into Domestic Metaphors, Robert Hammond's furniture/art pieces challenge the ordinary and the way we
picture everyday objects. His works have a life of their own, mixing domestic symmetries with contemporary context and
illusion - boldly transforming familiar objects into new art. Defying convention, ordinary items are up-sided, corrugated, broken, and made transparent.
About Robert Hammond
British born artist Robert Hammond studied Fine Art at St. Martins and WSCAD in the UK. Starting off as an artist of oil paint, his art has since integrated new materials including, steel, glass and enamel - utilizing their inherent aesthetics as new mediums to further develop his work. His creations exhibit a conceptual bravado mixed with a visual lucidity whose facility and bright compositions bring a sense of fun and canny to his art - rewarding the viewer with whimsy, illusion and activation.
www.smogallery.com
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