Lewis Hammond, born 1987 in Wolverhampton, UK, studied Fine Art at the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture, and Design in London, UK before completing his postgraduate diploma in Painting at the Royal Academy Schools in London, UK. In 2016 he was awarded the Royal Academy Schools’ Prize for Painting. In 2021 his work is on view at Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, ITA and in a group exhibition at X Museum, Beijing, CHN. He has had solo exhibitions at such venues as the galleries Lulu, Mexico City, MEX (2020) and Arcadia Missa, London, UK (2019). Additional group exhibitions include Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg, Fribourg, CHE; Antenna Space, Shanghai, CHN (2019); Peles Empire, Berlin; and Smart Objects, Los Angeles, USA (2018).
Lewis Hammond’s muted and earthy-toned paintings reveal sites of dystopian liminality. Hammond stages everyday scenes, some based on personal events, in the style of baroque painting. The works include representations of people from Hammond’s private sphere as well as mental images of past encounters. On the border between surrealism and magical realism, ancient symbolic forms emerge and transfigure in connection with personal experiences. In this way, Hammond uses historical painting techniques to create contemporary artworks that offer a glimpse into the artist’s vast and complex image-worlds.
