Lewis Hammond

Instead of sounding himself as to his “being,” he does so concerning his place: “Where am I?” instead of “Who am I?” For the space that engrosses the deject, the excluded, is never one, nor homogeneous, nor totalizable, but essentially divisible, foldable, and catastrophic.

– Julia Kristeva

What becomes of the self in this space? – This is the question that the paintings of Lewis Hammond doggedly and arduously ask. They are visualisations of the many forces the body must undergo, the possibilities of what it could come between, or where it could – accidentally or not – end up. Incessantly interrogated and interrupted, the body is treated as a shock absorber, a mutable scapegoat for the antics of a poisoned and hostile world. It bears the violence of a homogenised and reductive space, one which wreaks havoc on the difference of the bodies entangled within it; a space which is seemingly at odds with the outcome.

- Josephine Baker