Ashley Hamilton Opens Solo Show
It’s been a while since Chattanooga painter Ashley Hamilton had her own show, and in this writer’s opinion, it’s about time. Hamilton has been dropping entries from her “nomadic paintings” series on Facebook and her webpage for a while now, and I for one am ready to see a bunch of them together.
Why? Because you need to view Hamilton’s work side by side (by side, by side). She creates long series of abstract paintings, thematically related, featuring repetition both within individual pieces and between pieces. Several paintings in a row create a hypnotic experience; I’m pretty sure a Hamilton-only show will induce a profound meditation on samsara.
Hamilton’s current style is both rainbowy and distressed. The paint’s piled up and then peeled down again, so a lot of times you’re looking into palimpsests, paintings beneath paintings. The colors leap out at you. Her work’s happy at first glance, but then on longer viewing you wonder whether perhaps you’re looking through a series of windows into a Genndy Tartakovsky cityscape and some scary stories are lurking back there.
The show opens this Friday at Frequency Arts, 516 Tremont St., right next to Aretha Frankenstein’s.