November 14, 2024
Transcript by Gallery and Curatorial Fellow Aislinn Doherty
This piece, titled She is Love and Wrath, is mixed media on paper. Here, Hamilton depicts a woman as the central figure with women looking upon her from all sides. Towards the top of the work, the women become less stylized as the viewer’s eye drifts towards the background. In addition to a large knife in her right hand, the woman is also pictured nursing a child on her left side. The majority of this piece is made up of darker shades of red and blue with white accents visible on the blade of the knife, the patterns of her skirt, and her headpiece.
This work shows a classical depiction of the Igbo Earth goddess, Ale, also called Ala. Throughout history, she has been pictured carrying a knife in one hand and nursing or holding a baby with the other. She is also known as the “mother who cuts with a knife” and “lawgiver of the Earth” as Hamilton describes that motherhood in Igbo and Yoruba culture is seen as the power over life and death. Though he specifies that this is a generalization, his pieces often follow this depiction of motherhood and the assumed femininity that goes alongside it. In this interpretation of motherhood, women have control over the production of people. Since they are seen as the balance between life and death, women take on a role of power and control that stems from being the creators of life. In particular, when discussing this piece, Hamilton references an early rock painting found in Tassili N’Ajjer that shows a woman with cornrows nursing a child. This painting is an early depiction of the maternal figure that does not directly link it to a divine figure and continues to build on the ideas of motherhood that he wants to convey in this piece.
This drawing is a part of his series “Three Icons” Though many of Hamilton’s drawings begin as studies for future paintings, this one was created to stand alone.. In the future, Hamilton would like to use this work as inspiration for a mural focusing on strength in femininity and the depiction of female bodies separated from objectification.
Stephen Hamilton’s work asks us to reexamine how femininity, motherhood, and the female body are represented and understood in art. In what ways do the depictions of women in his work remind you of other famous women in art? In what ways are they different?