Coverup

Coverup belongs to a group of work that artist Harmony Hammond calls near monochrome paintings in which layers of paint, hand-made straps, and rope are layered into a three-dimensional composition. Hammond uses only one color—red ocher—in this work, transforming the act of painting from one of representation (making a picture) to the creation of something sculptural and organic. Hammond often describes her paintings’ canvases as skins, explaining, the grommeted straps are wrapped around the painting as objects and body (suggesting bandage, bondage, binding) but do not cinch or constrict. The straps do not hold the painting together; the paint (and therefore the act of painting) does. Additionally, punctures and grommets in the canvas suggest bodily orifices, while the dangling ropes allude to the suturing together of various parts into a whole.