Ruth Hamill, Ocean Breeze, 2008, oil on raw canvas, 50x50 inches
Ruth Hamill, Marooned at Sea, 2007, oil on raw linen, 54x34 inches
Ruth Hamill, Looking Out, 2007, oil on raw linen, 54x34 inches
Ruth Hamill, Far Out, 2006, oil on raw linen, 34x54 inches
Ruth Hamill, Sunset Unlike Any Other, 2006, oil on raw canvas, 30x30 inches
Ruth Hamill, From Shore, 2008, oil on canvas, 48x17 inches
Midday, 16x20, 2006, oil on raw canvas
In the 1950s, Helen Frankenthaler poured on untreated canvas with diluted paint. Morris Louis knew her and openly stole. Louis poured vivid color very precisely; Frankenthaler let it happen. I do a bit of both, but ultimately, my work is nothing like the work of the great Frankenthaler and Louis.
The paintings I made in 2006-2008, shown here, are layered, built upon. Making them was messy. I set up an outdoor studio where I had the room to toss the large canvases around and the freedom to allow the paint to run and splatter. I had the trees to hold the drying paintings like easels and the slope of the ground and gravity to replace the brush by pulling the paint where it needs to go.
Part of the fun (and frustration) of doing these paintings is that they finish themselves after I walk away from the canvases. Before drying, the paint continues to migrate; shapes and colors change. Sometimes magic happens -- the sun seems to be peeking just above the water at the horizon line. I think it’s only right that a series depicting the horizon should have an element of the fleeting here-and-gone beauty of a sunset.