From her studio in New York, Alexandra Hammond delves into her artistic practice, highlights its connection with the Möbius strip, her interests in Buddhist practices, and the metaphysical theory of non-duality.
Alexandra Hammond (b. Woodland, California) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. She holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY, and a BA from NYU's Studio Art department.
Her work is closely related to meditation, the unconscious and alchemy. The first dream she remembers from her childhood was that she received a mysterious box in the mail filled with ribbons, lace and fine textiles. The blue satin ribbon was perhaps the first inkling of the sky-like backgrounds that would come to dominate her paintings.
(Pink Loop, 2020) (Ab Ovo, 2020)
Hammond believes that all things, including perception, arise from a common ground of being and are in constant relationship with what is and what has been. She employs the specificity of images and manners as an invitation into an awareness of the undifferentiated: pure consciousness, endless possibility, blue sky.
(Roofline, 2017, oil on panel, 9 x 12 in)
Recently, Hammond was awarded the grand prize for ANTE Mag’s recent open call for artists as alchemists, curated by Douglas Turner, founder of Wedge Studio, AOT Project Salon and Moart NY. Hammond took over ANTE Mag’s instagram for one week, for a full Alexandra Hammond takeover, or what she likes to call, “Alexchemy,” where she opened the world to her studio and explored themes of alchemy, and more broadly transformation, as it appears in works of art, the art world, and New York City itself.
"The mind-body is the alchemist and the world is the mirror of the mind — what we perceive and project becomes real."
Her work is greatly influenced by the Möbius strip, also known as the twisted cylinder, an infinite loop found in mathematics. The möbius strip is a symbol of the non-dual, ecofeminist worldview. This one-sided, non-orientable surface is alchemy in action: a being traversing its surface would travel on the surface and the underside of the strip, yet the moment of transition from one side to the other is impossible to determine. It is a symbol of the undifferentiated nature of existence and the contradictory fact that we also experience differentiation, contrast and separateness. Physicists theorize that the möbius strip may well be the shape of our universe -- alchemy all around.
(Alexandra Hammond, Various "Loops," Oil on Panel, 11x14")