Lisa Brotman
Thomas Block
Michael Enn Sirvet

Hamiltonian Gallery and Hamiltonian Artists are proud to announce the opening of their fifth exhibition featuring the lush and emotional work of Lisa Brotman, the tumultuous second installment of Tom Block’s series exploring mysticism in our post-religious age, and Michael Enn Sirvet’s sculptural work exploring the complex dualities of the natural and fabricated world. Disparate as the work may appear on the surface, each of these three artists endeavor to embolden the viewer to reevaluate the relationships of three overlapping realms through the filter of our modern-day sensibilities; namely, the world around us, the world within us and the world we cannot see.

Lisa Brotman’s paintings of women are part of an outgoing series that she began in the late 1970’s. Brotman creates an environment full of slightly curious women and colorful, repetitive flora that teeters between familiar reality and phantasmagoria. This interplay of iconographic elements begets metaphors and emotions, which in turn provoke visual and psychological investigation.

Twenty-five large, chaotic, mixed media panels wrap around the back of the gallery and together as a whole compose “Conference of the Birds,” an installation by Tom Block. The artistic process of this installation, as well as the symbols and imagery it contains, is modeled after a historic allegory of the spiritual quest of a mystic, also called, “Conference of the Birds.” Block’s technique of reworking, stripping and overworking the vibrant paintings echoes his own spiritual quest – realizing the mistaken ideals of classical mysticism, he then replaces them with a contemporary understanding of spirituality.

Michael Enn Sirvet’s prolific sculptural works ask more from the viewer than solely a formalist response. Sirvet dismantles, alters and reassembles manmade objects, or natural objects reshaped by man, to retell the stories of archetypal forms. His sculptures bridge the natural world with the industrial, and evoke questions of existence and man’s dominion.

click here to download a copy of the press release

March 21– May 2, 2009

Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 21
7–9 pm

Hamiltonian Artists:
Michael Enn Sirvet

Guest Artist:
Thomas Block
Lisa Brotman