Susie Hamilton

Hamilton's paintings often depict travelling figures (Sami, explorers, riders, Berbers, mountaineers, shoppers) struggling, dashing, trudging through the wilderness of the world. The wilderness may be a natural one or it may be a bleak public space such as hospital, superstore, casino or mall. The settings are frequently overwhelming in the sense that they dwarf or threaten the living creature. They are also characterised by glaring light which...

Hamilton's paintings often depict travelling figures (Sami, explorers, riders, Berbers, mountaineers, shoppers) struggling, dashing, trudging through the wilderness of the world. The wilderness may be a natural one or it may be a bleak public space such as hospital, superstore, casino or mall. The settings are frequently overwhelming in the sense that they dwarf or threaten the living creature. They are also characterised by glaring light which exposes and blitzes the figure and sets up a violent contrast between dazzle and darkness. The method and style of painting, as much as the setting, challenge the figure and the figurative. The style hovers on abstraction with the figure and the figurative being threatened with loss of identity and transformation into abstract forms. Figures and objects become mysterious or menacing, replacing the named and known with the unnamed and unknown.