Jane Lafarge HAMILL

An excerpt from ARTnews June 2013, written by Greg Lindquist............."Jane Lafarge Hamill's exhibition emoticon consisted of mostly half-length portraits, some depicted frontally, others painted in profile or from behind. This installation was dazzling and kaleidoscopic. Hamill was able to express her ideas about the limits of expression by abstracting the portrait. As such, her pictures share an emotional distance with the expressive short-hand of the emoticon. The faces of the figures were absent, painted out, or otherwise obfuscated. While the emoticon commonly provides context or tone for quickly written communication, it also creates a cool and ironic detachment from its original expression. Similarly, rather than describing a straightforward countenance, Hamill's canvases find an emotional intensity in a style of painting that nearly obliterates any facial indication...."