Harmony Hammond

In Hammond’s formulation, however, abstraction is not a mode of expressing the “real” self or the truths of the unconscious, as had been explained in preceding decades. Rather, abstraction is an explicitly feminist and queer tool for visualizing and exploring the ever-changing textures of subjectivity. -- Ashton Cooper * Artforum *
Ms. Hammond’s art has beauty too, but of a prickly, irritant kind: it’s burlap — sometimes sandpaper — as opposed to silk. No surprise that, in a market-driven art world resistant to what can’t be classified and resentful of work that refuses to ingratiate, the spotlight has been a long time coming her way. -- Holland Cotter * New York Times *
In this long-overdue career survey, Harmony Hammond proves, if there were ever any doubt, that abstract art can be politically charged and bursting with content. -- Meredith Mendelsohn * Brooklyn Rail *
Harmony Hammond’s work can appear bewildering at first, expansive in its diametrical explorations, and sprawling in its material juxtapositions. -- Sharmistha Ray * Hyperallergic *
Material Witness [...] stresses the variety of materials the artist has used from 1971 to the present, and it emphasizes the metaphorical valences of menstrual blood, hair, rags, straw, rusted tin, and, above all, paint. -- Rachel Churner * 4Columns *
[Material Witness] testifies to Hammond’s status as a productive and rigorous maker who demonstrates a consistent knack for transforming the neutral forms of abstraction into corporeal metaphor. -- Faye Hirsch * Art in America *
In these works [...] Hammond's advocation for resistance and female strength in life and art is a message conveyed with boy ferocity and grace. * Spike Art Magazine *
Throughout, materials such as burlap, pine needles, bone, hair, blood, charred wood, and linoleum are augmented with paint, bronze, and graphite to elevate women’s craft traditions into reflections of the female body and its strength. -- Allison C. Meier * AFAR *
[In 'Material Witness'] abstraction is a direct invocation of women’s bodies and the work they produce. Intense textures lend her paintings and sculptures an erotic charge; here, surface is a window onto the interior self. -- Evan Moffit * Frieze *