Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton is well known for her large-scale installations and collaborations with diverse groups of visual artists, poets, and performers. The five new lithographs on view now are a continuation of a previously published series of eight screen prints related to the artist’s 2015 exhibition the common SENSE, commissioned by the Henry Art Gallery. As a Visiting Fellow at the University of Washington, Hamilton was given unfettered access to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, where she was seduced by the extensive collection of mammal, bird, and amphibian specimens. Inspired by Aristotle’s idea that touch is the sense that is common to all animal species, the artist focuses on what it means to ‘touch’ by way of seeing.
When placing the specimens on a rudimentary flat-bed scanner, only the sections of the animal’s body that physically touch the surface of the glass are in focus; the vulnerable underbelly of a green-barred woodpecker or jackass penguin, the relatable hands of an assam macaque, or the plumy neck of a long-tailed koel. The resulting images give us a larger-than-life view of the most intimate details of their bodies, as the artist provides an opportunity for the viewer to inspect each individual feather and tuft of fur up close. For Hamilton’s Gemini project, the artist selected several of these images and elected to print them on a very delicate Gampi paper that has similarities to the warm tone and physicality of newsprint.