Leah Hamel
Awash In Your Shelter

Media: Artist made paper and steel
Size: 46" x 240" x 21"
$6275

Artist Statement:
My sculptural work is a catalog of my observational surroundings; rooted in my interest in the environment, and paralleled with our inner emotional landscape, our relationships with others, and the spaces in which we find ourselves inhabiting. The objects I create evoke quiet vulnerability and physicality through biomorphic forms or recognizable imagery appearing in a fantastical format. I urge viewers to contemplate ideas of belonging and the connection between our psychological terrain, outer physical landscapes, and how we perceive our experiences. Use of materials like plastic and ceramics, intermingled with metal and natural fibers, is a way to examine and physically express the visible ephemerality and perception of permanence found both in nature and in our personal connections with people and places.

Paper, a dominant material in my practice and made from local plant fibers or collected recycled material, represents the fleeting ephemeral aspects of life both physical and metaphorical. It has the ability to be transformed time and time again, taking on new life through each form it becomes. I am also interested in paper as a source to record stories and ideas, which reflects our fading memories and the attempt to immortalize experience through written language.

Cyclical processes are always apparent in my observations of the world- in architecture, in nature, and also existing in who we are as humans individually and through relationships with others and our surroundings.

Biography

Leah Hamel is a professional artist, art educator, and writer based in Birmingham, AL. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Art from University of Alabama in Birmingham in 2012 specializing in ceramics and sculpture with a minor in art history. Hamel was a Graduate Teaching Assistant of sculpture at Louisiana State University within the College of Art and Design and held a position as the Campus Exhibition Coordinator during her tenure there. She completed her Master of Fine Art in 2016 receiving the Dean’s Medal of Honor for leadership and academic achievement.

Hamel worked several years in arts administration in roles as Art Education Coordinator and Grants Coordinator for Manship Theatre, and Director of Arts Markets for Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. She has taught at several colleges and universities in both Louisiana and Alabama as well as teaching at several organizations for community based classes. Hamel has also recently taught as visiting instructor at Mendel University in Czech Republic.

Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama played a large part in the style of work that she creates today. Living in an urban setting, while spending any and all free time in the woods has set the stage for the parallels she draws in her work between the man-made and natural world. This play between the ephemeral, natural world and long lasting materials and urges of the man-made world mirrors that life long setting between city and forest. Her use of handmade paper reflects our transitory bodies as well as ideas of perception and memory.