Jackie Hamel
Artist Bio
Raised in a large family with limited resources, I learned to create what I could not buy – games, greeting cards, gifts… I even made my first easel at the age of nine. Fortunately, my father was a photolithographic and carpenter, so supplies were readily available.
In college, I balanced practical courses with fine art and earned a BA in Graphic Design with a BFA in Drawing. I studied printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, painting, and calligraphy. After only a few gallery shows, I put my art business on hold to raise my sons, but I never stopped producing art. As my career evolved from graphic design to marketing and sales, I realized I wanted to use all of my experience to create and sell my own works… so here we go!
Artist’s Statement
Each time I create, I hear my mentor’s voice, “You must be willing to destroy in order to create” which he adapted from Picasso’s “Every act is first an act of destruction.” Therefore, my art has taken on a similar approach through tactical trials and exploiting errors. I imagine the piece, begin to create and inevitably something unexpected happens. I find that errors are the magic of art.
When a piece starts to become predictable and controlled, I switch media to restart the creative process and hopefully produce errors. My body of work is a combination of artistic processes – drawing, painting and printmaking. As I cycle from drawing and painting to printmaking, I find I can relinquish some control over the outcome. Printmaking always produces a somewhat unexpected result.
Over the years, my work has been an assortment of subjects and themes. In my latest works, there are two main themes: Juxtaposing Emotions and After Life. In the first series, I contrast emotions using nature. I draw inspiration from my garden capturing the interplay of plants as if they were human’s interacting. The second series focuses on the impermanence of material possessions using imagery of ancient burials.
It would take up many pages to list all the artists who have influenced me, but some of my favorites are Dürer, Rembrandt, da Vinci, Goya, and Picasso. I especially find this quote, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, inspires me during times of self-doubt, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
