"Contact" Painting

PATRICK EARL HAMMIE (b. in 1981, New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist best known for his large-scale portrait and figural paintings. His work draws from art history and visual culture to examine ideas related to cultural identity, masculinity, beauty, and sexuality. His paintings often use allegory to implicate power structures, and question systems of racism and sexism. Hammie lives in Champaign, Illinois, where he currently works as an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the U.S., and he has received awards from Wellesley College, Tanne Foundation, Alliance of Artists Communities, and Joyce Foundation, been an artist-in-residence at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, and was recently named an Artist to Watch by the International Review of African American Art.