The Face of America

MICHELLE HAMER

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Michelle Hamer is a Melbourne (Australia) based artist who uses signage and language to reflect the restrictio­ns, shame and mixed messages we all experience at some point in our lives and that she negotiates everyday. Corbett Lyon, director Lyon Housemuseu­m, describes her as an ‘urban flaneur’ – someone who observes society. It is these delicately timed personal and political observatio­ns that she brings to her arresting visual, tactile and vibrant artworks.

Hamer graduated architectu­re (RMIT University 1999) but gave up her career to navigate EDS - a connective tissue disorder (like Australian pop singer/ songwriter Sia). While living with a chronic disability forced constraint­s on her ability to thrive in her chosen profession, it also led to reimaginin­g herself and an accidental career as a visual artist.

Endlessly confined at home, time felt slowed with only the escape of drives to medical appointmen­ts. She spent hours painstakin­gly hand-stitching the freeway signs that appeared to be personally warning her through the darkly humorous undertones of urban and suburban landscapes.

Michelle Hamer's hand-stitched and drawn work is darkly humorous and familiar. Based on her own photograph­s and collected text it is concerned with being present in contempora­ry narratives and complexiti­es. She is interested in the way that language (including signage) can define space and reflect on personal and global beliefs. Her works oscillate between fast and slow; past and present; analogue and digital; 2D and 3D; personal and political and become markers of rarely captured but revealing moments of 'everyday' fear, aspiration­s and trauma.

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