New Zealand Artist Bill Hammond

[ënagualí~ᏉLAᗪἇ ኔጡ።]

New Zealand Artist Bill Hammond

Was he actually seeing into alternative dimensions to do his paintings?:-

“It’s bird land. You feel like a time-traveller, as if you have just stumbled upon it – primeval forests, rātās like Walt Disney would make. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also full of ghosts, shipwrecks, death…” —Bill Hammond

Bill Hammond sailed to the remote Auckland Islands, south of Aotearoa New Zealand towards Antarctica, in 1989. Its landscape made a profound impression on him. Lined up on cliffs, staring out at the ocean, the birds of the Auckland Islands were unafraid of people, and Hammond imagined that Aotearoa looked very similar before human habitation. Different stories and timeframes and images collide in his canvasses as if in a dream, or as if fragments of consciousness were projected on to a screen. “I don’t have a tight brief”, he says. “I fumble around history, picking up bits and pieces.”

(Te Wheke, 2020)

https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/multimedia/collection-not-dis...

Christchurch-born artist Bill Hammond, noted for the environmental and socially-aware themes of his work, he passed away aged 73.

Born in 29 August, 1947, Hammond attended the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury from 1966-1968.

Although it wasn't until 1980 that he began exhibiting his paintings, it didn't take long for the New Zealand art community to take notice, the Independent Guide to Contemporary New Zealand Arts says.

He tackled social and environmental issues, with his work often containing messages about humanity and its status as an endangered species.

He had a strong interest in music, seen in much of his early work. A shift in Hammond's practice came in the early 1990s after he returned from a trip to the remote Auckland Islands, where there are no people and birds rule the roost.

His work included themes of environments under threat, and the vulnerability of life in a precarious world.

Hammond had his first solo exhibition at the Peter McLeavey Gallery in Wellington March, 1987. More than 20 other exhibitions at the gallery followed.

One of his best known works, Fall of Icarus, is displayed at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.