Domestic Brutality
This black and blue installation, which combines western decorative motifs with images of police brutality (regularly seen on the news as well as on social media and YouTube), puts focus on the blind indifference of many American households to this unnecessary violence. That violence which is so prevalent in our American experience today, is so engrained in our lives that it becomes background noise, as easy to overlook as the images embedded in our decorative wall paper.
Domestic Brutality was on view as part of New Works / Alumni Three at McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC, June 6 - August 24, 2019. "New Works / Alumni Three is the third in a series of exhibitions featuring distinguished McColl Center alumni artists. Hollis Hammonds, John W. Love, Jr., and Susannah Mira each repurpose varied materials to distinctive artistic ends while reaffirming our relation to everyday objects and the life of the objects beyond their intended use." This exhibit was curated by Marisa J Pascucci (Visiting Curator, for McColl Center for Art + Innovation, summer 2019).
Domestic Brutality was originally created for the exhibit What a Bloody Mess, new works by Hollis Hammonds, Jenn Hassin & Claude van Lingen at grayDUCK Gallery in Austin, TX, April 7 - May 7, 2017. This work was selected for New American Paintings, issue #138, curated by Alison Hearst (Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth) and as Grand Prize winner of the 14th Semiannual Competition for Dave Bown Projects, curated by Alison Hearst (Associate Curator, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth), Benjamin Sutton (News Editor, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn), and Jodi Throckmorton (Curator of Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art).
