PATRICK EARL HAMMIE (b. in 1981, New Haven, Connecticut) is best known for his monumental portraits that adopt body language and narrative to reinvent and remix ideal beauty and heroic nudity. His paintings explore the tension between power and vulnerability and examine how male artists have historically represented themselves and the nude. Coming of age in a generation that is post-Civil Rights and post-Second Wave Feminism, Patrick has situated himself in the discourse of contemporary art that questions constructions of self and social identity, gender politics and race. Patrick characterizes his work as “an effort to reconcile inner duality, transcend typical masculine ideals and yield to new realities that require constant compromise and change.”

Since 2007 Patrick has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. In 2008 he was awarded the Alice C. Cole Fellowship in Studio Arts from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, which supported a year’s research and culminated in his exhibition Equivalent Exchange. In 2010 he received the Tanne Foundation Award for excellence in the visual arts. In 2011 he was selected to be a resident in the Arts/Industry program at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Patrick maintains an active schedule of exhibitions and speaking engagements nationwide. He currently serves as assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. … Read More