|
RICHARD
HAMWI
When looking at Richard
Hamwi’s artworks, I vacillate between
looking for some specific content, such as a landscape, and feeling
something, an abstract dance of forms. In my mind’s eye,
I like the movement introduced in this intimate yet expansive space.
There is an ambiguity born here in an intersection between art
and life; and, it is this very uncertainty that intrigues me. A
playing field is exposed upon which a contest of representation
and abstraction is unfolding. This duality is not an awkward test
of wills; rather it is a graceful ballet, choreographed between
real and imaginary space – a pas de deux of self-referential
composition and landscape.
This evolving territory
is like a floating world. While the work is influenced by landscape
and art history, it is relatively unanchored by the pinpricks of
classification. As a child, I used to lie on my back and watch
the cloud formations changing from abstract arrays into temporal
forms, a rabbit here, a sailing ship there. Now, unfortunately,
my gaze is more grounded. I do, however, sometimes lie in bed and
watch as patterns in wallpaper come and go, appear and recede,
fluctuating between some sort of recognition and randomness. Similarly,
in almost all visual things, I look for patterns, trying to order
my surroundings.
At times I am even distracted
by coincidental spaces, the negative space or the form of a text
appearing in a book. Unlike the case of concrete poetry, where
this type of form makes sense, I realize that I am inventing a
reading of form where none was intended. But, Richard Hamwi’s
work intentionally invites this type of reading, an imaginary reinventing
of space. This is not to say that the work is not carefully thought
out and constructed; it is simply to suggest that it is framed
within a context of liberty, inviting, allowing, privileging an
interpretive reading.
There are several artists
who have influenced Hamwi. One in particular was the late Richard
Diebenkorn. This California painter’s
work fluctuated from figuration towards abstraction. His earlier
Ocean Park Series featured figures in landscapes not unlike Mark
Rothko’s early paintings. Although Diebenkorn moved towards
abstraction, he never completely abandoned vestiges of the figurative
world; he always retained a conceptual sense of the landscape.1 Rothko,
for his part, eventually eliminated specific suggestions of figuration
from his paintings. Rothko’s belief was that to achieve the
maximum potential of the sublime, the essence of an experience,
one had to shed the possible limitations, the inhibitions, of figuration,
and allow for a more universal plateau of contemplation. On this
field of somewhat contrary cultivation, Hamwi does not sit on the
fence between figuration and abstraction; rather, he creates a
crop of hybrids.
The piece Convergence
is somewhat unique in its verticality, but a corner of
nature also inspired it: a tree or a shrub. Somehow the forceful
elevation of the colorful collaged elements simultaneously portrays
the strength and fragility of nature. As with almost all of these
works, these strips of color are all collaged elements, torn from
existing pieces of watercolor and pen and ink components. Hamwi
essentially tears down his materials to build up a composition.
The intricately layered results are so skillfully applied that
it is almost impossible to distinguish the separate pieces constituting
the whole. The lines are actually the transitions between one piece
of paper and another; and, these lines are incredibly varied, possessing
their own transitional character that is not unlike a microcosm
of the fluctuation between representation and abstraction.
The end result of these
artworks embraces the process of their evolution.
While Hamwi has become
skilled at controlling watercolor and even the interaction of inks
with the watercolor medium, inevitably, there is also an aspect
of accident involved here (as is the case of the torn edges of
paper). It is intriguing that Richard is able to combine a sense
of control, of precision, and also allow for the accidental. Lines
of ripped material vary from the careful to the carefree, building
up an overall perspective born of overlap; yet, even the overlaps
are often ambiguous as the application of one piece of paper over
another may contradict a sense of logical spatial progression.
Even the drawing Extrapolation, with its Cézanne-like cubist
construction, vacillates, vibrates between foreground, middle ground
and background.
Convergence suggests
the colorfield works of Morris Louis; and, Distant Radiance bears
some resemblance to Paul Jenkins work. Yet, again, these two artists,
while influential, also avoided the specifics of figuration. They
and many of their contemporaries were in the habit of making extremely
large-scale paintings. By comparison, Hamwi’s
modestly sized renderings seem to be able to encapsulate an amazing
amount of strength in a small package. Like Paul Klee, in a work
such as Valley there is an intimate complexity that invites close
inspection, an adventure into vistas of another world. These cropped
slices of life are not confined by their edges: Their central strength
expands beyond such physical confines. Even a circular format, such
as Winds of Change, seems to be a microscopic (or telescopic) view
of a much larger whole – as one is drawn into reading the
minute threads of color, like a fabric cord of an ancient Mayan
text.
These disciplined, self-contained
works of Hamwi are actually large compared to many of his earlier
works. The small, more complex pieces echo his interest in Illuminated
Manuscripts; and, his Arabic-American background has engendered
both cultural and aesthetic values witnessed in the interwoven
patterns of forms. As a child, Hamwi was surrounded by Persian
rugs, screens and carvings. From these roots, there is an elegant
fragility in the complicated weaving of colors and forms that is
inherent in both his work and his life.
A work such as Hamwi’s Mirage is reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler’s
large stained, colorfield canvases. Yet, despite Frankenthaler’s
frequent selection of titles suggesting landscapes, there are no
representational forms in her work. So, there is none of the flux
evident in Hamwi’s Mirage, which, while also abstract, is
clearly referencing the land. In this case, the colors recall the
terrain of the Southwest, or, the West Coast. Richard used to live
in New Mexico and California. He has said that an important criterion
for him is to live in an interesting natural environment as the
landscape informs his work.
In New Mexico, Richard
met Leonard Lehrer. Leonard became a sort of mentor for Hamwi.
Although Lehrer’s work does not bear a
direct resemblance, there is a mutual interest in landscape, color,
and draftsmanship. But, more importantly, there was and remains
a kinship. Lehrer never literally instructed Hamwi where to go
with his work, but he was a sort of spiritual guide, providing
a sense of confidence in a liberating pursuit of a form of individual
expression.
Richard Hamwi’s
artworks are not unlike himself, a peaceful, gentle soul.
Yet, beyond the surface,
beneath the quietude, there is also a vibrating strength. Within
the stillness of an aura of solitude, these works shimmer with
a sublime light.
1 In fact, while at the time they were not actively marketed,
Diebenkorn continued doing figurative works
throughout his later, more abstract stage.
|
