Anthea Hamilton Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1978 -

Anthea Hamilton was born in 1978 in London, United Kingdom, where she continues to live and work. Evolving out of a cross-disciplinary engagement with performance, Hamilton’s sculptural practice is engaged in opening up theatrical spaces into which she projects herself, creating elaborately staged self-portraits that resemble three-dimensional Surrealist tableaux. Her sculptures are props for narratives that have yet to be realized. They are precarious and subjective formations that seem to be poised on the cusp of realization and collapse. Although made deeply autobiographical through the recurring insertion of personal motifs, such as Hamilton’s signature cut out of her own leg, these installed scenarios involve viewers on a bodily level through a combination of tactile materials and sensual allusions. For her exhibition “Gymnasium” at Chisenhale Gallery, London (2008), Hamilton choreographed found objects into a sexually charged environment reminiscent of a sports complex, complete with ropes, red tatami mats and physical training equipment.

Anthea Hamilton has recently presented solo exhibitions at Frieze Projects New York, Randall’s Island, New York, US (2016), Love IV: Cold Shower, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, DE (with Nicholas Byrne) (2016), Kettle’s Yard, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2016), The Magazine Sessions in collaboration with Fiorucci Art Trust, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK (2016), Lichen! Libido! Chastity! Sculpture Center, Long Island City, US (2015) House, Curated by S Handlykken & P Eeg-Tverbakk, Commissioned by KORO, Oslo, NO (2015), Donuts, Fig-2, ICA, London, UK (2015), Just Kimonos, Shanaynay, Paris, FR (2014), Love (with Nicholas Byrne), Glasgow International, Glasgow, UK (2014), Venice (The Kabuki Version), 59th International Short Film Festival, Flatness: Cinema after the Internet, Curated by Shama Khanna, Oberhausen, DE (screening with interactive performance) (2013),IBID Projects, London (2009), La Salle de Bains, Lyon (2009), Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2009), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2008) and Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2007). Her work has also been shown as part of "Newspeak: British Art Now” at Saatchi Gallery, London (2010), “Art Now: Strange Solution” at Tate Britain, London (2008), “Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art “ at Barbican Art Gallery, London (2008), and “Blackberrying” at Galleri Christina Wilson, Copenhagen (2007).


Anthea Hamilton is currently nominated for the Turner Prize.