Artist Allison Janae Hamilton's New Solo Show in Chelsea

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – Episode Featuring Artist Alison Genae Hamilton's New Solo Show in Chelsea

Podcast Information:

• Title: All Of It
• Host/Author: WNYC
• Description: ALL OF IT is a show about culture and its consumers, aiming to engage thinkers, doers, makers, and creators in discussions about the what and why of their work. The show fosters a community that celebrates diverse perspectives, reflecting the rich cultural tapestry of New York City.
• Episode Title: Artist Alison Genae Hamilton's New Solo Show in Chelsea
• Release Date: February 19, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart welcomes New York-based visual artist Alison Genae Hamilton to discuss her latest solo exhibition titled Celestine, showcased at the Marianne Boeschi Gallery in Chelsea. The conversation delves into Hamilton’s artistic inspirations, the significance of her Southern heritage, the integration of family history into her work, and the various themes explored in her new show.

Exploring the Show: Celestine

Celestine is a multifaceted exhibition that intertwines celestial imagery with profound reflections on land, heritage, and contemporary issues. Hamilton describes the genesis of the show's title and theme:

"I wanted to take the landscapes that I've been working with for years in my work and sort of look upward, look skyward and consider the night sky as fodder for this exploration of land." [01:28]

The exhibition features a 12-minute time-lapse video of the night sky in Hamilton’s home state, accompanied by the haunting vocals of soprano Candice Hoyes performing "Florida Storm", a hymn composed in 1928.

Southern Heritage and Artistic Practice

Hamilton emphasizes the pivotal role her Southern roots play in her artistic endeavors. Born in Kentucky, raised in Florida, and with connections to Tennessee, she identifies as a "pan Southerner." This diverse Southern heritage informs her portrayal of landscapes not merely as backdrops but as "main characters" in her work.

"The landscapes from each of those locations really center in my work. I consider the landscape as not this background element that's sort of secondary, but it's a main character in my work." [01:55]

Her Southern upbringing instills a deep appreciation for land, entwined with rich histories and contemporary dialogues, which she seeks to unravel through her art.

Family Heritage and Archival Influences

Hamilton discusses her connection to family history and how it influences her art. She began collecting family photographs, especially those of the women in her lineage, which span seven generations. This collection serves as a foundation for exploring Black womanhood and its intricate relationship with land and nature.

"When I was pregnant with my daughter... I felt it was important to find an image of the oldest living ancestor... So now in my art studio, I have seven generations of women, of mothers and daughters." [03:54]

Black Womanhood and the Land

A significant theme in Hamilton’s work is the intersection of Black womanhood and the natural environment. She portrays land as a multifaceted entity—both a place of refuge and a site of labor. Her grandmother and aunts, who were avid outdoors women, inspire her depiction of Black women’s enduring connection to nature.

"My experience of black girlhood and then eventually black womanhood is really tied up with land and all of its complicated meanings... I try to make it expansive and really explore the different cultural continuities throughout the years and generations." [05:02]

Urban Life and Maintaining Connection to the Land

Despite residing in New York City, Hamilton maintains a strong bond with her Southern roots by spending considerable time in her hometown, particularly during winter. Her filmmaking projects often reflect this duality, merging urban dynamics with the serene landscapes of the South.

"I spend a lot of time at home... I make a lot of my films there. Pretty much all of my films are made in the South." [06:23]

In-Depth Look at Celestine

Celestine is a comprehensive showcase of Hamilton’s exploration of celestial themes intertwined with historical and environmental narratives.

Masks with African American History

One of the standout elements in Celestine is the collection of fencing masks, each imbued with African American history. Initially inspired by an image of Black American soldiers fencing during World War II, Hamilton began collecting and embellishing these masks, transforming them into sculptural artworks.

"They are embellished with anything from upholstery tacks to wood flowers to alabaster, grapes, feathers, all kinds of things." [12:16]

For this exhibition, she casts the original masks in bronze, adding a timeless and enduring quality to the pieces.

Serpentine Mirror: Homage to Mary Ann Carroll

Another notable piece is a serpentine mirror inscribed with "brilliant sky" five times. This artwork honors Mary Ann Carroll, the only female artist among the Florida Highwaymen, a collective of Black American landscape painters.

"The snakes... sort of in this Ouroboros fashion... is an homage to Mary and Carol and all the other black women who have really been deeply invested in land." [14:11]

The Ouroboros symbolism—a serpent eating its own tail—reflects themes of eternity and cyclical nature, resonating with Carroll’s legacy and the ongoing relationship Black women have with the land.

Plastered Hands and Personal Connections

Hamilton incorporates plaster casts of hands belonging to friends and family members, such as Shawanda Roundtree, Deb Willis, and filmmaker Amalas Morgan. These hands symbolize labor, creation, and the collaborative spirit within the art community.

"They're an expression of thinking through... labor and creation and craft in this other type of a way." [16:13]

Ambiguous Large Paintings

The exhibition also features three large paintings that invite open interpretation. Hamilton intentionally leaves these pieces flexible for viewers to project their own meanings—be it crosses, graveyards, stars, or other natural phenomena.

"I like them to be able to explore and see what they're seeing in a certain piece... I love talking to people about what they're seeing in the artwork." [17:24]

Symbolism of Colors: Red, White, and Blue

During the discussion, Hamilton touches upon the use of red, white, and blue in her paintings, referencing recent cultural conversations surrounding these colors as seen in works by artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé. For Hamilton, these colors represent the complexities of American identity and history, especially within the context of Florida’s diverse landscapes.

"I'm situating this as, you know, a personal story, but also a very, you know, squarely American story... exploring today’s conversations and the history of the country from the perspective of the environment and the land." [18:38]

Audience Engagement and Impact

Hamilton hopes that visitors leaving her exhibition Celestine will feel inspired to explore their own relationships with the natural world and engage in conversations about the environment, climate, and land ownership.

"I would hope that they would walk away with... a new nugget of interest of something to sort of explore more of their relationship to the natural world." [19:58]

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reminder to the audience to visit Alison Genae Hamilton's Celestine exhibition at the Marianne Boeschi Gallery in Chelsea, running through March 8th. Hamilton leaves listeners with an invitation to engage deeply with the art, encouraging personal reflection and community dialogue.

"You should go see Alison Genae Hamilton's work at the Marian Boesky Gallery. The show is called Celestine. It is through March 8th." [20:27]

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Key Takeaways:

• Alison Genae Hamilton integrates her Southern heritage and family history into her art, emphasizing the significance of land and landscapes.
• Celestine explores celestial themes, Black womanhood, historical narratives, and environmental issues through diverse mediums including sculpture, film, and painting.
• The exhibition encourages viewer interaction and personal interpretation, fostering a deeper connection with art and its cultural implications.
• Hamilton aspires for her work to inspire audiences to reflect on their own relationships with nature and participate in environmental discourse.

For more insights into Alison Genae Hamilton's work and to experience Celestine firsthand, visit the Marianne Boeschi Gallery in Chelsea before March 8th.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Interviewer]

Alison Geneae Hamilton's new show is titled Celestine. To set the stage when you enter the gallery, visitors can watch a 12 minute time lapse of the night sky in Hamilton's home state while Candice Hoyes voices Florida Storm, a Vogue piece said of the work. Hamilton's work in Celestine reminds us that the reverence for what came before us, for the people and land, doesn't only mean root down, fight for a better world. We must also look up. Looking around you will see sculptures, fencing masks and bronze cast plaster sculptures of hands and a serpentine mirror with a message. You can see pictures of all of this on our Instagram of it. WNYC Celestine is on display through Saturday, March 8th at the Marianne Boeschi Gallery on West 24th. New York based visual artist Alison Genae Hamilton joins me now in studio. It's nice to meet you.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Nice to meet you too. Alison.

[Interviewer]

Where did you get the title Celestine?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Well, I was really interested in a vertical landscape, as you mentioned. I wanted to take the landscapes that I've been working with for years in my work and sort of look upward, look skyward and consider the night sky as fodder for this exploration of land.

[Interviewer]

I said, you're a New York based artist but you were born in Kentucky and then you went to Florida. You have roots in Tennessee.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

So how does your Southern heritage inspire your practice?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Oh, it's a critical part of my practice. It's really the underpinning of all of it. I am from sort of. I consider myself like a pan Southerner because I have all of those different various roots that you mentioned there. And you know, the landscapes from each of those locations really center in my work. I consider the landscape as not this background element that's sort of secondary, but it's a main character in my work. It's sort of what, what is always at the forefront. And so for me, I draw upon the landscapes that I know the best, that I grew up with that that are most meaningful to me. And then I think rich histories to tell, but also really important, you know, discussions are needed to have sort of in a contemporary sense regarding these locations.

[Interviewer]

I think a Lot of people will recognize you, having seen you in the New York Times, this recent piece, and in the Times, it's a picture of you, and you're just surrounded by your ancestors, pictures of your ancestors. When did you begin collecting family pictures like that?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Well, we've. I mean, we've always had them. So on my mother's side of the family, we are from rural western Tennessee, and my great, great grandfather bought our family farm back in the 30s. And so, you know, I think when you have this, you know, family land that everyone is sort of. Many family members have, you know, been born there. And over the generations, you just have a lot of stuff. You've got a lot of, you know, volumes of artifacts and archival materials and photographs. So we've had them. They've always been around. I think we had maybe a family reunion or maybe my grandmother's birthday, maybe a couple of decades back, and there was a concerted effort to scan everything and really digitize, and I think we made, like, a little family book for it. So since then, I kind of piqued my curiosity to really start collecting these artifacts for myself.

[Interviewer]

What's an interesting detail that you've learned from these pictures?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Oh, goodness. Well, you know, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I really felt it was important to find an image of the oldest living ancestor that we knew of, who is my great, great, great grandmother. Her name was Piney, and she was a midwife, and she was born during the antebellum period, and she was the midwife for her granddaughter, who is my great grandmother, Alice, who I was named after. So she delivered most of Alice's children, including, you know, so that's all my grandmother's siblings, you know, most of them. So there was always this family lore about Piney, Grandma P. So I wanted to find an image of her, and it was just elusive for a while. And finally I just felt the need to really go for it and try to find it. And so I asked my mother when she was visiting if they could please see if they could find some. And they did find one. So now in my art studio, I have seven generations of women, of mothers and daughters in my studio space.

[Interviewer]

Well, how does the image of your family, the women in your family, Black womanhood, how is it tied to your work, your practice of landscapes?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

You know, I think for me, part of my experience, or most of my experience, I might even say, of black womanhood, really has to do with land and the outdoors. And I think that, you know, that's not something that's necessarily seen as a link. But for me, you know, you know, my grandmother and her sisters and my aunts, and they were all just outdoors women. They all hunted, fished, farmed, and they, you know, would play cards and have cigarette crossword puzzles sitting out on the porch. And so my experience of black girlhood and then eventually black womanhood is really tied up with land and all of its complicated meanings, whether that's, you know, respite, refuge, a site of leisure and pleasure, or a site of labor and, you know, all the complicated, you know, concerns bound up there. So it's really. It's just really broad. And I try to bring all of that into my artwork. I try to make it expansive and really explore the different cultural continuities throughout the years and throughout the generations that sort of play out on the land. And also the contemporary realities and issues and the important conversations that I think are sort of there to be discovered and uncovered within the landscape.

[Interviewer]

Now that you're an urban person, how do you stay in touch with the land?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

I spend a lot of time at home. I mean, I love New York City. I love being here. But I do spend a good amount of time in my hometown, especially during the winter. I make a lot of my films there. Pretty much all of my films are made in the South. So I spend time and I stay connected. It's still very much a part of me. I don't think it ever will not be. And at the same time, I love the energy of the city and being here in the art world and allowing myself to take part of conversations that are, you know, from all different parts of the globe, which you can. Which is one of the beautiful things about New York City is that we all can come to this wide table with all of our experiences and all of our backgrounds and have really rich and fruitful dialogues, visual dialogues especially.

[Interviewer]

My guest is artist Alison Genet Hamilton. Her new show at the Marian Boesky Gallery is Celestine. It's through Saturday, March 8th. When you sat down to make this show, what was your like, your sort of your go to top line? You know, how sometimes ever you have a top line, it just really keeps you on point. What was your top line for Celestine?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Oh, what a wonderful question. I think the top line would be the idea of the stars. Also as respite, you know, my first museum solo was back in 2018 at Mass MoCA. And in that show, I really became fascinated with the turpentining industry, which sort of had its last in northern Florida. And I Read this quote by a turpentine worker that said, we work from cant to can't, which is can't see in the morning to can't see at night. Right. And so they would begin their day before the sun came up and would work all day and would finish the day after the sun went down. And the only moment of pleasure or leisure or time with your family or time to make art or music or anything, was under the COVID of the night sky. And so the celestial has been a part of my work ever since, sort of discovering that history and really wanting to sink into it. And so for this show, I wanted to, again, bring that to the forefront and play around with and explore the meaning of the celestial in all different ways. So there's a film using, you know, astrophotography. My team and I did a deep dive into that, learning all the tech and, you know, all the nerdy, wonderful things about getting into astrophotography. And there's paintings with celestial scenes. And so I really wanted to bring that idea to the forefront of the meaning of these respite moments within otherwise very arduous forms of labor.

[Interviewer]

The first thing you see, or it can be the last thing it was the last thing I saw. I didn't go in the room the first time. I went and I saw the art and then I went into the video room, but I saw people do the opposite is Celestine. It's this 12 minute time lapse and we hear the voice repeating florida Storm. It was a hymn. It was composed in 1928. Could you tell us a little bit more about it?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Absolutely. So Florida Storm, it was written, as you said, in 1928 by a gentleman called Judge Jackson. And so the song is about the great Miami Hurricane of 1926. But as many of the listeners may know, 1928, when that song came out, that's also when the Okeechobee hurricane hit the state of Florida. And that hurricane is the backdrop for Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. And that hurricane, both storms just really devastated the state. And the second hurricane, the Okeechobee that killed thousands of black migrant workers, they were buried in these mass, unmarked graves. And so since learning that history, I have incorporated that hymn into many different artworks. It's been titles of sculptures and, you know, installation works. And I worked with musicians to do different arrangements and having had processions kind of around sculptural materials. And so when I was working on this film, I wanted there to be sort of a Dialogue between this gorgeous, you know, celestial landscape and these dramatic scenes and also, you know, speak towards the meaning of sort of these natural disasters and these, you know, complexities of land and sort of the issues of today regarding, you know, climate, our environment and what is the relationship between, you know, these precarious elements of landscape, like these storms that are getting stronger and the seasons are getting long. And so what does that mean for us in relationship to these other histories of land? So Candace Hoyes, a wonderful soprano singer also from Florida, is singing an arrangement of that Judge Jackson song.

[Interviewer]

She's been on our show.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Oh, wonderful. She's a wonderful person. She's amazing.

[Interviewer]

How did you get into filmmaking as part of your practice?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

You know, what always been, you know, I've just always loved film and filmmaking and so I've made, you know, experimental type, you know, installations for many, many years, sort of really just the whole time, but as of my kind of life as an artist. But one thing I'll say is that, you know, I've. I've really enjoyed doing sort of multi channel installations, sort of these room based, dramatic, kind of, you know, you meander through it, you're as an audience member, your body is sort of amongst the screens and amongst the vis. And recently I've also been working sort of in a crossover way where, you know, the films are situated in a museum context but also can be screened in a theater context as well. So that's been enjoyable recently, kind of having that shift. And so that's something that's a little bit more of a newer part of my practice, even though I've been working in film for a very long time.

[Interviewer]

Artist Alison Gen Hamilton is in studio with us. We're talking about her show Celestine, which is on display at the Marianne Boesky gallery through Saturday, March 8th. I want to talk about these masks. They're so great.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Thank you.

[Interviewer]

They're fencing masks. You've worked in this before. But I understand they have African American history to them, which I didn't know until researching you. I'm gonna say that. Would you tell me a little more about the history?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Sure. I saw this beautiful image, this really striking image of these black American soldiers that were fencing. I believe they were World War II soldiers. And I just began to think about these soldiers who went off to fight in these world wars and they would come back to their country and to the same sort of conditions that were there when they left. And, you know, and I just began to collect these masks, these fencing masks. And I didn't really have an agenda for them. At the time, I didn't have a home for them or a place for them.

[Interviewer]

They just had them.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

They were piling up, piling up. And I would get them in thrift stores and ebay and anywhere you could think of one could find a fencing mask. But I did. And eventually I started photographing them in interesting ways and sort of bringing them into the exhibition space kind of as sculptural objects. And finally I began to embellish them. So they now exist as part of my practice almost as a formal or material experiment. That original photo is kind of a launch pad for them. But now they've kind of taken on a life of their own. So they are embellished with anything from upholstery tacks to wood flowers to alabaster, grapes, feathers, all kinds of things. And so for this show, Celestine at Marion Boesky, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at doing them in bronze. And so we cast the original masks and we'll be, you know, 3D scanned them and cast them and, you know, went through that whole process that I really loved. And so now they are in bronze form at the gallery.

[Interviewer]

The next thing I want to ask you about is the mirror. It's this beautiful mirror. It is sort of a serpentine frame. I sort of, like, tried to see how many snakes were around the side and who. It's pretty cool. And they all folded into one another. And on it it says brilliant sky. Yes, five times. But on the gallery sheet, when you take it over, it says brilliant sky. And it says it's for Mary Ann Carroll. Who's Mary Ann Carroll?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

So Mary Ann Carroll was the only woman artist who was part of the Florida Highwaymen. And the Florida Highwaymen. They were a group of black American traveling landscape painters throughout the state of Florida. And they would travel around the, you know, mid century and they would sell their. Sell their paintings, their landscape, landscape paintings. And they are all just gorgeous, this beautiful, Just. Just community and cohort of painters. And Marion Carroll was the. Was the only woman highwayman, and she passed away only a few years ago. But, you know, her work has always been inspiring to me also as a black woman who has a key interest in the land and the meanings of it and the beauty of it and all the complicated things bound up with the land and the landscape. So I wanted to just have a piece that was sort of an homage to her that, you see the snakes there. Many of them are sort of in this Ouroboros fashion Which is kind of the tail is the head. Is the tail exactly this sort of folkloric or epic sort of dragon or serpent that eats its own tail. And so I have had that theme in my work for many years as well. I've done them with alligators, which people who have sort of been on this long journey with me, they will recognize the alligator heroborus that I've done in the past. But I really wanted to kind of bring in another Floridian staple, snakes, you know, around that mirror. And, yes, it's in homage to Mary and Carol and all the other black women who have really been deeply invested in land, whether that's through, you know, art or literature or music or academic work. And so just a nod to the fact that there are many of us with these interests with producing this work that has to do with the history and the contemporary realities of land.

[Interviewer]

As you're looking in the mirror, you realize I can see the piece of artwork on the wall behind me. A little piece of it, yes. These three plastered hands. They're really kind of amazing.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Thank you.

[Interviewer]

Whose hands are they?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

So I have casted well, so friends and family have featured in my work for many, many years. So likewise with these new plaster hand sculptures, I have sort of recruited friends to participate. Two of them are a friend of mine, Shawanda Roundtree, Deb Willis, who's a wonderful photographer and scholar, and another friend, filmmaker Amalas Morgan, has also been part of this project so far. But I wanted to, you know, thinking about, you know, the art world and the art kind of community. And so I'm kind of bringing in women from this art world to also kind of participate in. It's an expression of thinking through, again, labor and creation and craft in this other type of a way. So they're, you know, also with us in the gallery space.

[Interviewer]

And then you get to the back of the gallery, and there are these three large paintings. They look like any. You could actually have any thoughts about the paintings. They could be little crosses. They could be a graveyard. They could be stars in the sky. They could be almost anything you want them to be. First of all, how intentional was that.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Design, leaving it quite open for interpretation? Oh, I love that. I love that. Because I don't. I don't ever want to be too specific or too, you know, practical with my. With my viewer. I like them to be able to explore and see what they're seeing in a certain piece and certainly in the paintings. And so for those, you know, I originally thought of them as stars, as I mentioned, you know, that exhibition where I was really thinking about the turpentine industry and that night sky. So for me, the original sort of intention or impulse was to make these constellations or these sort of nebula like forms. But I have been told by people that they see everything. You know, religious crosses, emergency crosses. I've heard bird murmurations.

[Interviewer]

I saw birds.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Yeah, I saw birds, schools of fish. I mean, I've heard all kinds of interpretations and sort of meanings, but I love it all. I love talking to people about what they're seeing in the artwork.

[Interviewer]

You know, I was looking at the artwork and we were thinking, we were talking about it and we discussed the colors red, white and blue as among the different paintings. And we're thinking about how red, white and blue has been seen in the past few weeks between Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce. What do the colors represent to you?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Oh, I love that question. Well, you know, part of the impulse, I think, in that is to situate this work as it's a very American project, it's a very American story. And I think coming from part of the United States that, you know, people don't know as much about, you know, I think people have an idea of what Florida is, but I think it's so complex and there's so much to it. I grew up partly in South Florida, and then when I was a teenager, my family moved to northern Florida, the Big Bend area, also known as the Red Hills, forgotten coast region. And it's sort of. It's a little bit. It's right across the Georgia border. So it's the part of Florida that quote unquote, is the South. Right. It's a different type of Florida than what comes to mind in many folks imagination. So, you know, I'm situating this as, you know, a personal story, but also a very, you know, squarely American story, you know. And so all these complexities, again, of the landscape, it's really another way to explore sort of the today's conversations and the history of the country from the perspective of the environment and the land.

[Interviewer]

What's a question you hope someone will have after seeing your show?

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

That's a great one. I would hope that they would ask, you know, what might I do or contribute or what might I have to say or do in the areas of, you know, the environment, land, climate? You know, I would hope that they would walk away with a. Maybe a new nugget of interest of something to sort of explore more of their relationship to the natural world.

[Interviewer]

You should go see Alison Genet Hamilton's work at the Marian Boesky Gallery. The show is called Celestine. It is through March 8th. Thank you for coming to the studio.

[Alison Genae Hamilton]

Thank you so much, Alison. I had a great time.

[Podcast Host]

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