On the 26th of January 2oo7 I will be exhibiting my art-book in progress and talking about some of the key ideas at the heart of my work. Also we will be having a bit of a party as the night goes on as it is my B'day weekend.

在2007-01-26歡迎大家邀大家~~一起來到哈密瓜的油畫幻想世界,聆賞畫作且聽哈密瓜(HAM)說說他的獨特原創構思(香蕉櫻桃...)進入畫中的故事,期待與大家在""小客廳""見面 ~~~~~~~~

The night will kick off with Hervie on piano and me talking about my paintings in direct reference to them as we will set up a bit of a veiwing space. So if you are into these paintings come and check out my latest concepts on canvas.

Life LearNING

Painter: Hami
Series: Hybrid Cryptic (1998-200) Hybrid Cryptic Revision (2005)

The paintings in the Hybrid cryptic series take as their subjects two disciplines. The above painting uses imagery to create a cryptic message that is readable by relating the placement of things within the painting back to the title of the work.

Life LearNING was commisioned by Andrew Cooper ACe) in 2005 and takes as its subject the idea of a life of ear learning. ACe, founder of Riffind Music, has spent much of his life promoting, suppoting and encouraging local musicians in South Australia by organising concerts and marketing their music on CDds.

This Year 2006 I am Happy to be back in Australia working with ACe again at SCORCHER festival where he will be promoting 47 local musical acts on 5 different stages. 05 03 2006 at GleNelG football club Adelaide South Australia. Hamishpere will be operating all day exhibiting art and music every hour on the hour for 20 to 30 minutes each performance.

At the center front of the painting 'Life Learning' sits the musician Bill Evans who I have been listening to alot this year. There are also many other great musicians in this painting whose music I have studied in my spare time and thus they're music has influenced and inspired my life of learning music.

Anthropology and History

Painter: Hami
Series: Hybrid Cryptic, 1998-2000

The paintings in the Hybrid cryptic series all take as their subjects two disciplines. The above painting Mathematics and Biology uses imagery from both of those subjects to create a cryptic image that is readable by identifying images and relating their placement within the painting back to the title of the work.

Anthropology is a discipline I studied at university my favorite authors were Taussig, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. My favorite artist is Hans Haacke.


History. My favorite history is that of technologies and teaching. My favorite country or the country I have read most about is China.

Mathematics and Biology

Painter: Hami
Series: Hybrid Cryptic 1998-2000

The paintings in the Hybrid cryptic series all take as their subjects two disciplines. The above painting Mathematics and Biology uses imagery from both of those subjects to create a cryptic image that is readable by identifying images and relating their placement within the painting back to the title of the work. I try to locate key concepts within disciplines that have become powerful enough in common knowledge so as to shape our worlds, even on an unconscious level. In short subconscious concepts we use to think or organise ourselves by are some of the most powerful ideas that govern our lives. Reflecting upon and meditating with ideas and concepts, present in our everyday lives as stated on the painting, is the process I use to generate the hybrid cryptic paintings.

Mathematics
In the upper left hand corner of the painting is the word mathematics. Under Mathematics is a sphere shape representing earth in which we can also see a clock representing time and the lines of longtitude and latitude representing space. Time and Space are two concepts we use to locate and organise ourselves with in everyday life.

Biology
On the left we can see two hands playing with hair. In the middle of the painting we can see the legs and on the right we can see the torsoe and head. Clearly the body is divided split up and seperated in the painting. The idea of spliting the body up in three parts represents a biological view that although the body is a whole it can be worked on and studied through its disection and division. The enchanted view of a sacred body dating back to the dark ages has been challenged by the snlightenment movement so as over time an unenchanted biological labelling of the body and all its parts has been able to emerge. I came across many of these ideas about disciplines and their power in organising human life as I read everything I could get my hands on by the the French author Michel Foucault. Foucault is one author who explores how things have come to be and how we have come to be things. Such as is present in the modern disciplines of mathematics and biology.

This discussion is meditated on further in Hamisphere art and music 1996-2006 the hybrid cryptic poly-morph.

Censorship and the Imposition of Form, 1997, Oil On Canvas

Painter: Hami
From: Poly-morph series.

Censorship and the Imposition of Form like the other paintings from the polymorph series is constructed from fruit shapes to create the characters in the painting. Censorship and the Imposition of Form is a significant work because it is the first painting that not only uses fruit forms for characters in a painting fruit forms are also used to create the horizon line of the painting, through the use of cherries.

The idea of using the Cherry in shape and then also for the shape of the hills in the background allows the object of the cherry to be sublime in the back ground as if it is two things at once. Being two things at once hints at metaphor more so than morphology because it is not as if it is changing one thing into another it is it's own thing and another or alternatively it is analogous to something else. Thinking using metaphor and analogy aloows the power of distinction to guide my brush when painting. When I was first developing my poly-morph world I was reading many of the books written by the French author Pierre Bourdieu. Of particular interest to me were two books 'The Feild of Cultural Production' and 'The Rules of Art'.

Bubble Economy, 1998, Oil and Canvas.

Painter: Hami
From: Poly Morph series.

In this painting I used the same idea I used in the Fruitface Guardian painting. I used fruit to make a face and call this idea 'Poly' because I use many things to make one thing.

In the Bubble Economy I also start to employ the idea of 'Morphing; turning one thing into another thing; on the left handside of the painting one can see ant hills turning into buildings (implied morph). Implying that one thing is morphing into another deepens the paitings meaning by infering analogy between things. alternatively implying metaphor as a concept used to share ideas; idea of ants being like people, or having something in common with people, as both beings build structures to live in that can house millions. Human colonies + ant colonies etc. In this respect we can say hay this looks like that or that is similar to this and use these ideas to create meaning within a painting. Paintings tell stories when we look into or alternatively we can tell stories about paintings after they have entered us. Look more what else can you see and what does it mean in relation to the title of 'Bubble Economy'?!

The Fruit Face Guardian, 1997, Oil on cavas

Painter: Hami
From: Poly-Morph series.

This is one of the first paintings from Hamishpere and is a good one to use as an example of how Hami creates his paintings. In this image it is very easy to see how he uses things such as fruit to make a face a technique that can be seen in the work of many great artists perhaps the most famous being Bosch. So in this case eggs are used for eyes and bananas are being used for eyelids etc. The Fruit Face Guardian is from Hami's Polymorph series of paintings and is the series in which he created his polymorph characters. These characters were then used and further developed over the next ten years and used in his much larger works known as the Hybrid Cryptics. The basic idea of using objects or things such as fruit to make other things such as a face softens ones perspective towards looking into things to see what they are made of or in short to gain a deeper understanding of things. The idea of looking in to find things is the crux of Hami's work. Later this idea of looking in becomes harder for the veiwer as if to see the work as an increasingly challenging mind game of working out the puzzle or reflecting on what one is seeing in order to recognise the relevance of the things in the work to it's title. So once again Fruit Face guardian is an esay puzzle as once can see Fruit making up a face. However, in his other works from the Hybrid Cryptic series such as History and Anthropology or Mathematics and Biology it couold be argued the hybrid use of two disciplines and the interwoven nature of the work makes for a more cryptic reading.

Regardless of the meaningful aspect to Hami's work or whether one reflects upon what one is looking at or not all of his paintings are created with care, so just gazing upon them is a relaxing asthetic pleasure. If one does start to look into them as a series I can guarantee there is a story being told that is detailed and thus understandable. A great magical maze of characters and creation unfolds.

Hi my name is Hami I am an artist, musician this is my debut and best of Cd/book all in one called 'Hami'sphere Art & Music 1996 - 2006. I was born in Australia and am currently living in Taiwan playing music in a guitar / piano duo called Ham and Eggs and also the BAH trio, playing temple jazz.

'Hami'sphere' is a book that documents an imagined world of creativity and LearNING. It features over 100 paintings and drawings and many recorded musical compositions.

The book explores and documents my sphere of life, LearNING and friendship.Each peice of art is accompanied by a short explanation of how it came to be and how those in my sphere of friendship act as a sphere of influence. In short the art is meticuluously detailed and s a tribute to all the people in hami'sphere. I hope the care I have taken to produce quality art and music returns some beatiful color to the sphere. I have often had people tell me that they loose themselves in the detail of my work and they ask me many questions. Hamisphere is a book that answers some of the questions people have asked me, about my work, over the years.

Hami'sphere, is like a self help book to creativity and beyond on musical, philosophical and artistic levels! Hamisphere deals with two main periods of my work the 'poly morph' and 'hybrid-cryptic'. In the book each painting has a CD track number beneath it so that the reader can listen to the music I was meditating on at the same time I was working on that particular painting. The aim of being able to look and listen at the same time is so the senses can submerge in the full influence of hami'sphere. The idea of full submertion will be realised this year in a short animation. I will blog more on other pages any questions please email me.