Bill Hammond's birds go to the gym in his latest exhibition
The birds which inhabit Bill Hammond's paintings have taken on various roles over the years.
Overseas Part II
W D Hammond
Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington
Until December 20
The birds which inhabit Bill Hammond’s paintings have taken on various roles over the years. Sometimes they are forbidding, at other times enigmatic and sometimes they are louche characters just hanging around waiting for people like Buller.
They don’t really engage in activity although they are occasionally seen playing musical instruments even doing a bit of swimming and rowing but generally they don’t relax a lot.
In his latest show at the Peter McLeavey Gallery consisting of one large work and six smaller works, his birds are engaged in physical activity in something of a response to the mythology of New Zealand as sporting nation.
They can also be seen as being images of exotic local performers involved in a Cirque Du Soleil show.
With these works, Hammond has taken on both a more playful approach to his invented characters but also expanded his vision of the birds' environments. Previously his birds have often inhabited an acid green landscape but with these new works he paints with a range of colours – indanthrene blue, titanate yellow, silver, verde and green gold.
They become heraldic colours, giving the birds different personalities and characteristics. In the larger work Over The Green Gold Sea ($200,000) the birds are working out at their gym in the trees, one using the branches as a trapeze, another in track pants is ready for a race while a couple exercise with large bones.
In the six smaller works the birds are shown engaged in a variety of activities. In Over Yellow Seas”($42,000) the creature seems to be taking up a yoga pose while in Over Indanthrene Sea a couple of birds are dancing. In these works Hammond has created a set of demigods, the mythological equivalents of the Olympian gods transposed to southern lands.
They are small like small icons, with that idea reinforced by the artist applying a gold patina over the surface of the paintings.
John Daly-Peoples
Sat, 29 Nov 2014
Sat, 29 Nov 2014
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Bill Hammond's birds go to the gym in his latest exhibition
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