Painting the American quilt

Matt Heistand Arizona Daily Wildcat Work by Harmony Hammond, a feminist artist and UA professor, is being shown at the University of Arizona's Joseph Gross Gallery. The show, titled Landscapes of Exploitation is mixed-media work.

the landscape has long been a metaphor for women and their bodies, yet men have traditionally held the dominant voice in expressing this allusion, in both literature and art. In Landscapes of Exploitation, Harmony Hammond, a well-known feminist artist and UA professor, explores this metaphor through a woman's distinct perspective. Hammond's exhibit at the University of Arizona's Joseph Gross Gallery consists of various mixed-media works and is Hammond's first solo exhibition at the UA since joining the faculty in 1990.

Hammond's approach to art addresses feminist issues through an abstract, modernist style, breaking away from modern art's tendency towards apathy and nihilism. Hammond has said that "feminist art is outside of, something other than, the modernist tradition."

Where It's At Landscapes of Exploitation will show at the UA Joseph Gross Gallery through Friday. Gallery hours are Monday - Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Her work does not scream a socio-political message or agenda but subtly suggests it. Though it may take careful concentration and study to understand, Hammond links the abandonment and exploitation in rural farms to women's creativity and struggle.

The found objects Hammond uses in her mixed-media art adopt the meanings and contexts associated with them. Kettles, pots, rakes and rugs - all common things you would expect to find on a farm - contribute to the narrative text of Hammond's works. They conjure up the roles of women in rural America.

The objects also express a sense of abandonment. The pots and kettles are rusted or have holes. Rugs seem only partially completed with the remainder imagined in paint. A yoke lies on a straw canvas, implying perhaps the burden and exploitation of women. The objects collectively convey a sense of the oppression and domestication of women in their daily lives and duties. Hammond brings new life to these objects by incorporating them into her art but questions their purpose when abandoned and no longer needed.

In referring to the rural lands and the female body, Hammond pays a great deal of attention to the texture and appearance of terrain in Landscapes of Exploitation.. Many of Hammond's canvases are actually panels of matted straw. In using natural materials, like slices from bales of hay, she makes her work more tactile and realistic.

On her painted canvases, Hammond's criss-crossing brush strokes suggest an aerial view of rural America, with patchworks of farms covering the land. This faraway perspective emphasizes the abandonment and isolation of the land, where human presence is more a memory than reality.

This patchwork also suggests the process of quilting, an art genre nearly exclusive to women. Again referring to women's creativity, quilting celebrates women's artistic expression in rural life. Whereas abstract art commonly runs the risk of being too detached, Hammond demonstrates in this exhibit how effectively she can evoke emotional and responses.

Landscapes of Exploitation will show at the UA Joseph Gross Gallery through Friday. Gallery hours are Monday - Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.