Interview with Gallery A artist Toni Hamel

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The RMG caught up with artist Toni Hamel. Her exhibition, The land of Id is, on view in Gallery A from March 3 to 29. She will speak about her work on Sunday 29 March from 1-3pm.

The RMG: Hi Toni! Please tell us a bit about yourself?

Toni Hamel: I am an Oshawa-based visual artist. I received my BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts of Lecce, Italy in 1983, but my career as a visual artist is still considered ’emerging’ in that my first public show took place only about six years ago, in 2009. However, in these short years I have been fortunate enough to achieve some level of recognition, having received three Ontario Arts Council grants and many other awards. More recently, one of my artworks has been purchased by the Archives of Ontario for inclusion in the Government of Ontario’s permanent art collection, certainly a great honour of which I am extremely grateful.

RMG: What materials do you work in?

TH: As an inter-disciplinary artist the material utilized in my work is varied. I am fond of vintage and recycled objects for instance, which I often use in my installations and sculptural pieces. Their inclusion is never gratuitous however, as these objects need to carry either an aesthetic or a semantic function. Thus far my practice has been focused on drawing, but painting will also be part of my oeuvre in the near future.

RMG: Why were you interested in Gallery A’s Art Lab residency? What have you made while working as an artist in residence for the month of February?

TH: Originally my intention was to create a large site-specific installation for Gallery A, and that was in fact the reason why I had originally applied for the Art Lab residency. Unfortunately scheduling oversights prevented me from utilizing Gallery A during that period of time, an event that forced me to revise my plans at the last minute. Eventually I decided to work on large-scale paintings that are part of “The land of Id” series, a body of work funded by the Ontario Arts Council. However, the three-week residency period was not at all sufficient to bring these oil paintings to completion, therefore I continued working on them while in Gallery A. It was also my intention to experiment with mechanical flip-book animations, but lack of time has prevented me from doing so.

RMG: Can you please tell us a bit about your exhibition The Land of Id, on view in Gallery A?

“The land of Id” continues my discourse on human behaviour, focusing on our misguided relationship with the natural environment. In a nutshell, It looks at issues of land exploitation and its repercussions. For more information, please visit https://rmg.on.ca/gallery-a-toni-hamel.php.

RMG: What inspires you? Is there a particular artist’s work that has influenced your practice?

TH: Life inspires me – if not my own, then it’ll be that of others. I am unfortunately a news-junkie and also watch too many documentaries. I find it important for an artist to be knowledgeable and well-versed in the issues of the day, as I feel that Art must bear witness. I deal with the culture of my time, trying to raise awareness about particularly pressing topics which I feel are deserving of attention. ‘The land of Id’ is just an example of that.

There are many artists that have influenced my work or admire greatly. From contemporary figures like Victor Mann, Adrian Ghenie and Michael Borremans, to historical figures like Velasquez and Goya. I am attracted to works that have something to say, rich in content and meaning. I’m definitely not interested in ‘pretty images’ or ‘decor art’.

Image: Toni Hamel

The artists acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council for this exhibition.

Toni Hamel’s new series, The land of Id

This post is by Heather Bulman, a public relations student at Durham College and the RMG’s current Communications Intern.

Toni Hamel was drawn to art very early in life. She remembers creating her first sculptures from the clay brought up from the ground after her parents added a well to the backyard of their Italian home. To this day, Hamel keeps the earliest evidence of her true passion – a photograph from kindergarten with a few drawings on the back.

In Italy, Hamel fought to pursue an education in the arts. Finally, in 1983, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Academy of Fine Art in Lecce. However, after moving to Canada, she found it difficult to find a job with a degree in fine arts. Hamel took advantage of the dawn of technology by studying computer graphics at Sheridan College. As one of the few women working in technology at the time, she went on to have a very successful career as an interactive media developer and instructor at the University of Toronto. Despite her successes, Hamel grew tired of her career and, with the support of her husband, decided to return to her true passion. Since 2007, she has focused her creative efforts solely on her art. Although she incorporates many mediums into her pieces, she works mostly with graphite.

Toni Hamel painting in the Art Lab

“I started as a painter, but then I got tired of colour. Colour distracts me,” says Hamel. “To me, it’s like decoration. In the work I have evolved to, there is no place for decoration – it’s about the essence. I extract everything else. In doing so, I arrived at drawings. Drawings don’t have contextual information, just the central message. I don’t produce images, I produce content.”

Beginning February 4, she will have the opportunity to create new content as the second artist in residency at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG) in Oshawa, Ont. In the galley’s Art Lab, attached to the recently opened Gallery A, Hamel will have the space to reflect on humans’ relationship with the environment in her new series, The land of Id. This subject matter will complement a current exhibition in the RMG, Running on Empty, while exploring different formats.

Hamel’s experiences in Italy have inspired her to explore powerful topics such as social and political issues. She believes artists have a responsibility to raise awareness about important topics and share their experiences.

“It is difficult for artists to get the general community interested in the arts,” explains Hamel. “When I was growing up in Italy, there were no galleries that offered art classes to a variety of generations, like the Station Gallery or the RMG. Gallery A gives the artists the opportunity to develop new pieces while sharing and engaging with the community.”

For this artist, it’s all about sharing a message. Hamel often uses humour and satire to explore controversial topics. While she admits that reality can be offensive sometimes, she also finds it challenging to find the right balance. As her work has evolved, Hamel has learned that sometimes she can say more with a whisper than a shout.

Toni Hamel’s exhibition The land of Id runs in Gallery A from March 3 to 29. Image by Toni Hamel.

The Curious Curator: Toni Hamel

In this new blog series, our Senior Curator Linda Jansma or Assistant Curator Sonya Jones email artists with questions about their creative experiences. The emails are sent after the opening of the artists’ exhibition, and strive to reveal the experience of showing works at the RMG. In this edition Sonya Jones emailed Toni Hamel about her exhibition, The lingering, on now until the 24 of November, 2013.

SJ: What artists have influenced you and why?

Toni Hamel: There are many. Stylistically, I am attracted to the work of Michal Borremans, Joseph Cornell, Amy Cutler and Marcel Dzama. Conceptually, I love Mona Hatoum and Annette Messenger, both installation artists, for their choice of subject matter. Their work addresses the same issues I investigate in The lingering, such as gender role and discrimination, identity and self-acceptance. I also adore Betty Goodwin because I feel that her life story, much like mine, has been marked by serious struggles and heartaches, and I feel somewhat connected to the biography of Mary Pratt, although for different reasons. Married to the better known Christopher yet equally talented, Mary had to put her career on the back-burner while raising her family, her work considered more a hobby than a necessity during those years, and was able to re-focus on her practice only much later on in life. It is interesting to me to see how much I have in common with other women artists of my generations. Our biographies at times read very much as one: attempted our rise in the art world fresh out of art school, had to step away from it for two decades or so for familial commitments and obligations, and returned to it as middle-aged women. I wonder how many male artists have had to place their careers on such long hiatus because they had to dedicate the best years of their lives to caring for others…

Toni Hamel The Improvement 2013

SJ: Women often struggle with guilt at feeling discontented with their domestic existence. What would you say to these women?

Toni Hamel: It is ultimately a matter of choice. Guilt has many roots. It might stem from religious beliefs, from the social dictum, or from psychological predispositions. It is important to state at this point that this type of guilt is only experienced by women. Since for millennia we have been told to place our value as individuals on our ability to care for our families, it is quite understandable to feel guilty when our aspirations differ from those dictated by our society and/or culture. We are then confronted with an existential dilemma: do we continue living and behaving the way we have always done? Or do we break away from the norm and carve our own path? It is ultimately an issue of self-preservation and survival as guilt, in the long run, may also lead to more serious psychological complications.

An easy fix to this dilemma would be to physically remove ourselves from the context in which our guilt finds its fertile ground, to ultimately lead a life that is shaped by ourselves and for ourselves. When this option is not possible, I strongly believe that one way to alleviate one’s own discontent is to express it through a creative process. Such output not only has the power to sooth our soul, albeit momentarily, but it will also allow others to understand how we truly feel.

Our creative output, in fact, most times is able to succeed when simple words may otherwise fail. It is a form of communication that bridges the gap amongst us and brings us closer: as couples, as families, as communities, as human beings.

Toni Hamel Attachments 2012

SJ: You are refreshingly open about your personal struggles. How has the response from this exhibition been?

Toni Hamel: The response has been unimaginably positive, beyond my expectations in fact. A much welcome and collateral benefit of this exhibit has been that it is encouraging other women to come together and share their life stories, to speak about their own personal struggles and collective experiences, and find constructive ways to re-direct their psychological uneasiness.

The lingering might be my story, but it is also the story of countless other women, therefore it is very easy for them to recognize their own lives in these works.

SJ: What do you hope people will take from the exhibition?

Toni Hamel: I hope that The lingering will guide its female viewers through a journey of self-empowerment and self-realization, and direct its male visitors toward a path of understanding, appreciation and admiration for all women. As artists and intellectuals we are called upon to shape the culture of the society in which we live, and I strongly believe that exhibitions like The lingering lead us all in the right direction.

Read an article by Will McGuirk in the Durham College Chronicle.

Visit the artist’s website.

Visit the artist’s tumblr page.