DAIWA FOUNDATION
ART PRIZE 2012
TOM HAMMICK
HAROON MIRZA
JENNIFER E. PRICE
8 JUNE–19 JULY 2012
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London NW1 4QP
My work is concerned with a sense of landscape as metaphor: for the human condition, for states of mind and the imagination.
Over the last year, the imagery of my paintings and woodcuts has shifted away from the actual or observed, from natural phenomena in landscape I have experienced, towards a more imaginary and mythological dreamscape; a slightly dystopian world, centered on the simple life.
This recent work, though sourced in part from drawings and photographs made in the area where I live (on the edge of the Weald in East Sussex) has also been inspired by certain Asian texts that describe living in a shack in the wilderness. Po Chi-i’s moving account of living in his thatched hall on Mount Lu, Kamo No Chomei’s beautiful description of living in a ten foot square hut on Mount Hino (with a geopolitical backdrop of famine, war and uncertainty), and Matsuo Basho’s sunnier and more upbeat rendition of his 6-month sojourn on the shore of Lake Biwa, east of Kyoto, have all meant much to me. They hot-wire you into the overpowering and heightened experiences of living a weather-beaten life in the countryside. So many ancient Chinese scroll paintings and Japanese prints allude to this, which connect also to the feelings that Louis MacNeice describes in his poem Snow: ‘[quotation from the poem omitted]’
I have used this recurring motif of a rural shed, set in landscape (something I have been interested in for quite a long time - though previously depicted as more of a Boys’ Own fantasy of the trapper or hillbilly shelter, set in a North American wilderness), as a metaphor to express both how fragile our interwoven existence is on Earth, and how precarious the conjuring and arrival of creativity is for an artist. Lately, I have also been using these sorts of images to investigate a more celebratory relationship between dwelling and environment: for me, a theme of wonder and a possible answer in the quest for contentment in life. At root, these paintings and woodcuts of mine dwell on quite personal requirements for happiness: a love of the natural world and, as far as possible, simplicity in living.
Tom Hammick
May 2012