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Exhibition Review --Toni Hamel: The lingering

10/28/2013

4 Comments

 
Toni Hamel: The lingering

14 September - 24 November 2013
at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Canada

Given a long run and two galleries at RMG suggests the importance that the curators attribute to this artist and the thematic direction of her work. Hamel's graphically strong drawings and installations present a forceful narrative on the complications of domestic life in general as well as the psychologically repressive nature of carrying out artistic endeavours on the home front.  While this is a feminist story told many times, the necessity for retelling still exists.

Hamel delivers a powerful , highly skilled discourse,  with content that avoids  polemic with dark,  subtle humour. The hand of the artist is present, as is the idea of women working with their hands. So-called housewifely tasks  are shown in bizarre parody, as images of 1950s style "homemakers" carry out various housekeeping duties that subvert notions of domesticity and underscore its often constricting nature.  Women's hands are at work building a nest, decorating an enormous peacock then cheerfully taking it to market in a wheelbarrow, digging in the garden for hearts, working on a child's costume, slicing bread, and so on.  Women are shown working together, looking out into a larger world to which there is only imaginary access.

Thread and twine are employed throughout, providing a fitting metaphor for gendered constraints. It is also used to extend, accentuate, enhance the finely detailed figurative work on paper and  canvas, to define/confine the walls from which one thousand cranes fly forth, to make a cascade of hair that a woman irons industriously, or suggest the skeletal structure of wings that release a kitchen chair from its base where so much domestic work is done. 

The iconic house image appears in thread in small drawings such as "Attachments" where a woman mows an imaginary lawn, her machine's cord umbilically attached to the house.  In other works the thread is a line pulled out of one picture plane into another.  In a drawing of a photograph of a woman hanging clothes on a line,  a passing bird pulls the clothesline beyond the photo into a freer space. Less whimsically, red thread sews shut a woman's mouth.

While the main floor Alexandra Luke Gallery showcases the artist's exquisitely drawn wall works and three major canvas installations, an ascent to the upper gallery immerses one in a world of origami cranes escaping from six houses, into a central nest-like construction made from twigs. An accompanying sound piece of bird cries, gentle whistling, soft giggles, and a beautiful Chopin Nocturne (#9)  permeates both exhibition spaces. (audio by Peter Nelis) There is unabashed femininity expressed in the aural and visual content, underscoring the multi-faceted nature of femaleness and of feminism.

In general there is a tendency for us to engage in a cognitive dissonance about the role of women within the domestic sphere. There is a comfort level in homemaking that ignores the toll which it has taken in limiting women's lives. Some feminist theory re-evaluates the hand work of women as integral to oral narrative, as safe spaces for discussions, for storytelling, for continuation of a particular cultural environment, for sharing skills, ideas inside a private sphere.  However it is clear from the surreal nature of many of the tasks being done by these smiling, busy women that Hamel's intent is to question the validity of repetitive and often meaningless work or, at least, work that is done at the expense of women having richer more creative lives.

In her book of essays titled SILENCES, author Tillie Olson mourns the silences‑‑ the  literary works unwritten or unpublished because of difficult  circumstances and biased ... practices.  In The lingering Hamel illustrates the issue with biting humour, skill and warmth.


 
4 Comments
Gary Greenwood link
10/29/2013 01:41:17 pm

It's pleasant to think that Tony Hamel is being nostalgic for some of the attributes of womens lives in the not too distant past (or today, in many countries). Nostalgia is affectionate and pertains to happy personal associations and indeed, in womens lives there would have been some amidst all the rest which mightn't have been so happy. But nostalgia is by definition a view from a far different place.

Reply
Toni Hamel link
11/1/2013 01:37:40 pm

Hi everyone, I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify a few points. "The lingering" body of work is deeply autobiographical, reflecting my experiences as a woman born and raised in a small town in South Italy, in a family and culture extremely patriarchal and repressive towards women, where we are still considered not more than chattels, properties of our fathers and eventually of our husbands. In this society education and financial independence is certainly not encouraged for women, as it is in fact viewed as detrimental to the familial and social fabric, capable of upsetting the status quo and altering the conventional order of things (and of people). Moreover, given that the intended woman's role will be confined to the kitchen, education is viewed as an intellectually superfluous exercise and her financial independence as a very scary proposition, as it might lead to her abandoning her prescribed role to seek to carve her own path.
In response to Gary's comment, which is much appreciated, I'd like to say that it was not my intention to evoke a sense of "nostalgia", nor to bring to mind comforting memories of days gone by. As I utilize symbolism, metaphors, satire and irony in my work, the vintage imagery is here utilized as a means to enforce the point that, even after sixty years from "The feminine mystique" and fifty years from the feminist revolution of the Sixties, women are still regarded as the lesser sex, subordinate to men, appreciated only when still beautiful, quiet and submissive. For instance, we are constantly bombarded by images of unattainable standards of beauty accompanied by sleazy customs that erode our value as human beings and reduce us to mere sexual objects. Furthermore, although we are all blessed with "equal opportunity" and "freedom from discrimination based on gender" last time I checked I noticed that we are still fighting for equal pay, are we not?
If on the surface we seem to be doing fine, sipping our Starbucks mochas while texting on our smart-phones, behind closed doors we are still the ones who will have to pick up the dirty laundry from the bedroom floor, prepare the daily meals, while trying to come to terms with our own worth, our own identity and place in the world.
I therefore invite the viewers of my work to dig deeper than the surface of things to ultimately unveil its hidden truths. I'd like for them to reach beyond the aesthetic value of my work to decode its true embedded message. It is an intellectual exercise from which we'll all benefit in some form or another.
As someone much smarter than me once said: "The truth will set you free". I absolutely agree with that.

Reply
Margaret link
10/30/2013 04:01:26 am

Thanks Gary for your thoughtful comments. And in some ways the work does have a nostalgic quality that brings up the ambiguity that lives in that Father Knows Best style comfort level that like all cheerful veneers never told the whole story. But Hamel is using the imagery (I think) to talk about current gendered situations where women with families often come into their professional artists practice much later than men for the very important reasons connected to family obligations. The global issues of feminism relating to education for Afghan girls, gang rapes in India and female circumcisions are of course top drawer but there are still middle class ones that didn't go away after Gloria Steinem etc.

Reply
Gay Chat Oklahoma link
3/8/2021 02:56:39 am

Great reead thanks

Reply



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  • HOME
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