Mary Hambleton “Hard Rain” Exhibit Response
Mary Hambleton’s work was, overall, aesthetically pleasing and meaningful at the same time. While many of the works were bright, colorful, playful abstracts featuring swirls, circles, and straight lines that were pleasant to look at, many others incorporated her personal PET scans of skin cancer spreading and allowed one to really see and feel her pain as a cancer patient.
Although this exhibit focused on Mary Hambleton’s late works, it was quite possible to divide her late works into two periods, that roughly corresponded with the diagnosis of her cancer. Previously, her work had been largely abstract, focusing on shapes like circles, that reminded the viewer of one of two extremes in relation to the world. Some of these paintings made one think of the universe, giving a feeling of fleeting insignificance. Others seemed to be an extreme magnification of a cell, showing the many organelles, leading one to feel that they were the sum of many parts.
While there was no exact correlation between the shift in her works and her diagnosis with melanoma, because her works are extremely laborious and time intensive process, there was an abrupt shift. Her works changed in almost every way. For instance, while she had once worked mainly in paints, there was now a shift to incorporate objects and collage like effects into her works. These collages often featured things such as pictures of extinct animals and Mary’s own PET scans, giving a very strong relation to her own future.
Personally, I feel that while the earlier part of her works were more visually appealing, her later works left me with a deeper message and stronger connection. Several of these works had a very powerful messege for me, and the relation to the passage of time and the death of everything was interesting in that it was both accepted and defied at the same time. Perhaps the strongest example of this is the work “Waiting for the Miracle.” Hambleton clearly showed the passage of time with thin horizontal lines, going through repeated circles that could represent the turns of the Earth. The top was lined with blocks, showing pictures like the dodo bird, an extinct species of elephant, and Mary’s own PET scans. These factors scream “Life ends” but there is the image of a hand holding an egg on one of the blocks, which whispers back “but it begins again.” Several of Hambleton’s works seem to deal with the issue of death and time, but this was the only one featured that also showed a slightly positive outlook. As Mary passed away within a year of the completion of this work, perhaps that shows an acceptance of her fate? One cannot be sure. However, it is clear that Mary Hambleton left us with much to think about as we ponder her artwork for years to come.