Press Releases | Sharon Arts

The Sharon Arts Center Gallery presents All Around the House: Squam Lake Series by Frances Hamilton, September 1st - September 30th, 2006. There will be an Opening Reception with the Artist on September 1st from 5:00-7:00pm in the Gallery, public invited.

"Map" by Frances Hamilton, 20"x26", oil on yupo

Life experiences have always been at the center of Frances' art work and the paintings in the Squam Lakes Series capture the sights, smells and textures of the Summer home her family has spent years visiting. Frances' personal narrative and facile painting hand tells a story of the past, present and future. Memories linger amidst the rooms and along the water's edge reminding us of the timless essence of the place.

The exhibition marks Frances' return to painting and a shift from her artists books and mixed media work on paper where found imagery conjures nostalgic memories and associations. Instead renderings are composed of pure color and line. The paint stroke creates dappled light and rich surfaces. Each composition offers a subtle perspective and intimate view of a room or place the viewer may enter, as if traveling back to an earlier memory or transported to a future dream. As Lasse Antonsen states in his essay included in the exhibition catalogue:

"In the Squam Lake paintings, Frances Hamilton allowed herself to become awash in memories, yet she remained keenly aware of the present moment. In the individual paintings, it is often the observation and rendering of the play of light through, for example the windows and curtains and onto bedspreads, that makes it possible for her to open up for the theatricality of reminiscences. It is this attention to the concrete situation, to the beauty of the moment, which makes her avoid the sentimental aspects of nostalgia."

Begun in 2000, the series include over 30 paintings ranging in scale. They are started on site and then completed in the artist's studio. Together the work presents a chronicle of life's quiet and simpler state of being and the intimacy of it's engaging lure.

Frances Hamilton is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and received her MFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA. She has exhibited with Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA, for over 20 years and is widely collected in private and corporate collections. She has received many honors and awards over the course of her career including the Artist Resource Trust Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, Massachusetts Fellowship for the Visual Arts, Blanche E. Coleman Award, Bunting Institute Finalist and NEA Finalist. Frances continues to teach at Mass College of Art as a visiting lecturer and was the Artists in Residence at Babson College from 2001 - 2004. Lasse Antonsen is the Director of the University Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

For more information call (603) 924-7676 or email galleries@sharonarts.org.