Russell M. Hamilton
Current Work / Research
Distances B-tween Us
Distances B-tween Us explores how physical movement, memory, and shifting environments shape the ways we relate to one another and to ourselves. The works consider the spaces we cross — physical, emotional, and cultural — and how those passages leave traces that influence how we see and inhabit the world.
My experiences living in different places, languages, and communities inform the sensibility of the work, not as direct subjects, but as quiet undercurrents. They surface in the attention to distance, balance, rhythm, and the subtle pull between forms. These works reflect the feeling of being both connected and apart, finding orientation in unfamiliar spaces, and noticing how meaning collects in the intervals between things.
In this exhibition, distance becomes a way of looking — a measure of where we’ve been, what we carry, and how we navigate the spaces between us. The pieces invite viewers to slow down, to sense the quiet shifts in line and texture, and to consider how the in-between holds its own kind of clarity and connection.
"An Empirical Voice"
"An Empirical Voice" Series 2025
“An Empirical Voice" is a series that examines the foundations of religion, culture, and language through the lens of my belief in the fallacy of ‘race.’ The voice throughout the work is my own—convicted yet curious—grounded in observation and personal experience that shape my understanding of culture, ethnicity, religion, and what it means to be human.
"Im-Migrant" Series 2018 - Present
The “Im-migration” Series explores my thoughts, ideas, and experiences with traveling abroad and being identified as a migrant/visitor/resident. Migration is at the core of human and social development as it has impacted the communities and social structure of both native peoples, and those who have ‘arrived’, either by their own will or brought against their will.
As a traveler and resident in many countries around the world, I have experienced being the ‘other’ while abroad, a feeling I also have while here in my home/birth country. We are all connected to the history of migration as our people, and we ourselves, look for new possibilities. The work was shipped to a solo show in Yogyakarta Indonesia, it was confiscated by the Customs Department, and detained, an ironic twist to work that dealt with Im/migration. I am continuing this tract of work currently.
