Essays on Art Archive - Hamiltonian Artists

Essay

The Sea that Sustains Life: Madyha Leghari’s contemplations on the intellectual and corporeal labor of creation

By Hajra Haider Karrar

An emotive and descriptive word, ‘pang’ is a sharp, sudden pain associated with transition. An initial glimpse of the exhibition suggests a descriptive journey that unfolds through depictions of anatomical changes and biological processes during pregnancy. However, upon closer inspection, the poetic text and subversive gestures reveal layered connotations that extend beyond the physical into psychological, political, and defiant realms.…

Essay

Neha Misra: Portals of Transformation

By Mojdeh Rezaeipour

At a moment that can be seen as both a warning and a call to deeper awareness, Misra activates the gallery as a hub for conversation, inviting reflection, imagination, and dialogue around how communities, ideas, and practices can come together to respond to the climate crisis.…

Essay

A World Abandoned

By Dr. Jordan Amirkhani

It is not difficult to imagine a world abandoned, for we have willingly abandoned so much already: our responsibility to nature, to higher education, and to public health; the legal and human rights of those fleeing oppression; vigilance against fascism and genocide; collective desire to hold the rich and powerful to account.…

Essay

Playtime in the Exclusion Zone

By Alexandro Segade

Ilin's previous projects have often played with the ludic overlap between the rules of games and the regulations of institutions. In this exhibition, the instructions offer cold comfort, exemplifying the distancing of bureaucratic language in the face of imminent danger. Still, there is something playful at play.…

Essay

Isabella Whitfield: Best Regards,

By R. Treshawn Williamson

The ensemble of artworks appear dormant—that is, until given life through sight. The objects Whitfield chooses to reference and render by way of casting and papermaking invite closer inspection, seducing the mind into a series of projected phantasms.…

Essay

Abed Elmajid Shalabi: In the Distance

By Leah Triplett Harrington

For Shalabi, the exhibition considers a post-oil future of the Arab world, a time at which we have yet to arrive. This anticipation is only heightened by his placement of each piece at an expanse from each other, creating a cohesive installation that hinges on distance, literally and figuratively. …

Essay

The Irony of Capacity: A Dark, Black Comedy

By Wayson R. Jones

Words fail, and then the fun begins. In his solo show at Hamiltonian Artists, Kyrae Dawaun tightly weaves concept, narrative, craft, and form into a river-of-consciousness whole, the effect of which is at once exhilarating and deeply moving.…

Essay

Ara Koh: Grounding; Grounded; Ground

By Hannah Barco

Though Koh’s work ostensibly has nothing to do with sign language, a chance encounter with this language of the hand can serve as a key for reading the body of new work that she presents in her solo exhibition Grounding; Grounded; Ground at Hamiltonian Artists. Indeed, Koh leaves her fingerprint, quite literally in the surfaces of many of her works.…

Essay

Cecilia Kim: when the body becomes dust and settles around you

By Hiba Ali

Absence serves as the doorway that molds grief into the very foundation of home; it is a gateway for processing emotions. We are called to walk through it by entering the doors of Hamiltonian Artists and invited to a four-way conversation between video artist Cecilia Kim’s friends in her solo exhibition when the body becomes dust and settles around you (2023).…

Essay

Matthew Russo: Practiced Play

By Marcus Civin

Do we need to practice playing? Are we still too often stressed with work? Even in our free time, it seems we chase outcomes, simulate, or code for play instead of just playing. A brief instructional wall text at Hamiltonian Artists in Washington, DC, welcomes viewers to Practiced Play, the first interactive exhibition created by Matthew Russo, who graduated with an MFA from American University in 2020.…