For many people in artistic pursuits, it can take years or even decades to find a unique style or a voice.
Moose Jaw artist Laura Hamilton has a style all her own and her painting has found an appreciative audience. Her new exhibit, The Moments In Between, opened Saturday at the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre and was drawing spectators 30 minutes before it opened. More than 100 people had been to the small gallery in the first hour of the show.
“It’s so overwhelming and so humbling,” said Hamilton.
Her work is an ideal fit for a spring show. It is full of vibrant colours, natural settings and whimsical and playful characters.
“You definitely know that it’s a piece of my artwork. They have that big hair and there’s a lot of vibrant colour and they don’t have faces,” Hamilton said. “There are lots of flowers, polka dots, stripes.”
Hamilton is from Moose Jaw was always creative and artistic growing up. She went on to teach elementary school for 10 years. She and her husband Kieran have two children, Luke (8) and Lincoln (5). In the fall of 2014, she returned to her love of painting as she struggled with post-partum depression. She painted “Lucy In the Yellow Dress” and captured something that has helped spark and inspire her work moving forward.
“I always thought that I would have a daughter,” Hamilton said. “The first painting that I painted was a woman and I almost feel like she’s the mother of all of the paintings. One after the other I had to keep painting these girls. Something inside of me was telling me to keep painting these girls with long curly hair. It’s this thing that’s in me, but now I almost think of them as my own children. That’s why the original paintings come with adoption certificates because they really are made and created in my heart and my soul. There are times when I cry because I have to sell it.”
This is Hamilton’s second exhibition at the Cultural Centre. She has also had an exhibit in Shaunavon and has another coming in May in Davidson. The 27 pieces on display at the Cultural Centre were all produced in the last year and are all available for purchase. She said she really enjoys interacting with her followers on Facebook and Instagram and she drew inspiration from her social media followers for this group of paintings.
“I was at home at my mom and dad’s and I was looking through old photographs with them. I came up with this great idea that I would use inspiration from old photographs,” Hamilton recalled. “I reached out to my social media followers and said I’m looking for your old photographs of your grandparents or your mom and dad when they were growing up. I’m going to use that to breathe new life into it and use my own signature style to give it some vibrancy and that’s what happened.
“It’s been really cool to hear the stories that have come out from that. People will share about their own childhood and going through an album with their grandmother and sharing stories and reminiscing.”
Hamilton said she likes getting feedback from people who enjoy her work. She said she will even stand in the back at her openings and listen to what people have to say. “People often don’t know that I’m the artist because they picture an older woman who is taller,” she said.
She said she will take in advice — she even tried giving her subjects facial features at one point — but ultimately, she does what works with, and is true to, her style.
“They have no faces, but there’s so much emotion in the picture that they almost don’t need that,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton works out a home studio and treats her work as a job even as she works to raise her sons.
“I paint really fast,” Hamilton said. “It’s therapeutic for me. I just have to do it. If I didn’t, my husband would say ‘Laura you better get into your studio.’”
She hosts an annual open house where people are invited into her studio workspace. The event will take place on Saturday, April 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with details available on her social media.
While her work is unmistakably hers, she also continues to evolve in her practice and try new things.
“I have to keep it fresh all the time, so even this week I bought brand new paint and new colours that I’ve never used before,” Hamilton said. “Even just that alone gives you this jolt and you have to experiment and do it. I’ve already drawn up eight pictures to paint right away. That’s how I’ll work: I’ll paint about 5-8 paintings at a time and I’ll just continue to work on them here or there and then all of a sudden I’ll have 10 new paintings.”
