About The Artist
My work is inspired by nature and travel. I use mark making and color to create paintings that are at the edge of abstraction and landscape. Ideas about aliveness and especially awe and wonder inform my work. Using my photographs as reference, I let the process of painting guide me to an unknown destination.
Applying acrylic paint both thinly and thickly, I often add elements like mica, pigments, and glass beads for various effects. There is a push and pull between improvisation and control in my process. I want possibilities for the painting to remain open so the work evolves slowly over time with multiple changes and layers. The layered histories hold a record of my memories and feelings of places and experiences, as well as my present state of mind, and the ideas I am thinking about. I am searching for something that surprises me, holds some kind of mystery, or inspires curiosity, or wonder.
Deborah Hamon is an artist, adventurer, nature lover, trail runner, and mother. For many years her work focused primarily on children, exploring ideas about identity development in both painting and photography. She then created The Polar Pom-Pom Project, to connect kids in a conversation about art and climate change, boarding a tall ship in Svalbard as part of The Arctic Circle residency in 2013.
Hamon’s current studio practice is focused on making paintings inspired by nature, travel, and the photographs she takes that explore both abstraction and representation. Her creative pursuits also include writing and she is slowly illustrating a graphic novel she wrote geared towards an 8- to 12-year-old girl audience. When she is not in her studio you can typically find her running or hiking the local trails, contemplating her next travel adventure while eating dark chocolate, and trying to live mindfully.
Hamon was born and raised in Australia coming to California for university. She ran her own graphic design studio in San Francisco before returning to graduate school to get her MFA from the University of California, Davis, where she had the opportunity to be Wayne Thiebaud’s teaching assistant, and work closely with David Hollowell. From 2002-04 she was an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center For The Arts. She was part of the inaugural citywide public art project, Hearts in San Francisco, completing her heart a few days before her daughter was born in 2004. Hamon currently lives and works in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Deborah Hamon has shown her work at numerous museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including Frozen Earth: Images from the Arctic Circle, at The Noyes Museum of Art, and Art on the Edge Biennial, at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Her work has been published widely including Photo District News and New American Paintings. She has won many awards including a West Prize Acquisitions Award and was selected as one of Photo District News’ choice of New and Emerging Photographers to Watch. Her work can be found in numerous collections including the Crocker Art Museum, West Collection, and di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and was on view in Tel Aviv, Israel for 5 years as part of the Art in Embassies program.
Please visit https://www.deborahhamon.com/about for full CV link at bottom!
Acrylic Paint, Photography, Mixed Media
Studio Information
Industrial Center Building
#315
My Studio is on the 3rd Floor — you can take the elevator if you want to avoid the stairs!
