I work primarily as an abstract oil painter, a slow and deliberate process, and as a printmaker making monotypes, a spontaneous and surprising activity. In both cases, I am making "something out of nothing" and in the process I learn about my inner world. When the necessity arrives, I work in collage and mixed media, where I reconfigure objects and images that already exist, have their own power and associations, and make a new statement with them.

In the studio, I become absorbed in the interaction of colors and the physical feel and look of paint. As I apply color, make strokes, clarify areas, an internalized landscape surfaces and I work with that, going back and forth between the immediate physicality of the process and the tumbling archives of my personal place-memory. I bring out the world of the subconscious; it is at once a world I am making and one I am revisiting. The challenge is to get thinking out of the way so that the intuitive creative process can move on and make its discoveries.

Originally from Seattle, I moved to San Francisco in my twenties. Though I studied art at the University of Washington and numerous schools since then, it's clear that the greatest teacher is uncharted time working alone in the studio, analyzing what I make, reflecting, going back to work. Primarily an abstract oil painter and printmaker focused on color interactions, I also work in collage and assemblage. I am energized by color, texture, paint, and what they make me see and feel.

My studio is at the decommissioned Hunters Point Shipyard. This plain, rough, quiet industrial area has long supported my process. There I can focus, sink in to that level of consciousness just below the daily surface, where making art takes me to the past, the future, and allows me to find my story.

Marc Ellen Hamel

tel: (415) 202-4315
e-mail: marcellenhamel@gmail.com
web site: http://www.marcellenhamel.com