Jane Hammond

Art Brokerage: Jane R. Hammond American Artist: b. 1950. She was influenced by the late composer John Cage. She collaborated with the poet John Ashbery, making 62 paintings based on titles suggested by Ashbery; she also collaborated with the poet Raphael Rubinstein. According to a 2002 article in the New York Times, Ms. Hammond aims to make paintings 'as complicated, inconsistent, varied, multifaceted as you are, as I am, as life is.... I think my work deals very directly with the time that we live in,' Ms. Hammond said. 'There's a surfeit of information, increasingly bodiless because of the computer, and I bring to this an interest in how meaning is constructed'.... The best metaphor for the method behind her rollicking, erudite, street-smart, angst-ridden, encyclopedic paintings is writing. The Times spoke of Hammond's "predilection for systems. For decades it has been her practice to limit all her paintings to mix-and-match selections from a total of 276 found images." Since this article was written, Hammond has moved in new directions; she no longer limits her painting to a body of found images. Hammond's work "Fallen" was first displayed at the artist's one-person exhibition at Galerie Lelong in New York in March 2005. The sculpture was accompanied by a wall text which read, "Each unique handmade leaf is inscribed by the artist with the name of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. The exhibition begins with 1511 leaves." The work was acquired and exhibited by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2006 and subsequently shown at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA. The artist has continued to update this memorial piece. The most recent exhibition opened with 4229 leaves. Listings wanted.