Brandi Hamilton, a multidisciplinary artist, will exhibit her work at the Bricolage Gallery in Lumberton. The show, “Material Intelligence,” will open Nov. 13, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The gallery will also be open Nov. 14 and 15, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Local author Billy Augustine will sign copies of his book, “Four Funerals in Mamou,” Nov. 14.
The instillation was originally shown in the Dishman Art Museum in 2021, at the height of COVID, as part of Hamilton’s degree thesis.
Hamilton is a retired Air Force satellite communications veteran. She said the work draws on her career as well as the aesthetics of Southeast Texas. She said she focuses a lot on the working-class mentality that she grew up with, and the sense of “do it yourself.”
“There is a lot of assemblage, collage — a meshing together of objects and ideas, and maybe just imagery of objects,” Hamilton said. “I think it is juxtaposing the items of our cultures into new context and aesthetical sense, or different formal ways of showing interesting objects that are interesting to me.”
Hamilton installed Bricolage Gallery in her uncle’s construction garage. It represents the self-reliance of the Lumberton’s community during the time of her uncle’s construction business, she said. Hamilton said she wants to explore the idea of “do it yourself” in different ways.
“I think that still exists here, this resilience and self-reliance idea,” she said. “The objects that represent that idea to me, I’ve tried to intertwine with the more technical, digital, futuristic ways that we have progressed in humanity.”
Hamilton said she hopes visitors will be interested in seeing the studio and looking at the finished work. Hamilton said she wishes to give attendees, especially those in her community, a different perspective on construction work and how it can be perceived as art.
“My uncle built this place and I adore it, and I feel like I’ve taken his construction profession and then just made art from it,” she said.
Hamilton said she hopes people will look at the work from the viewpoints of the craftsman and the artist.
“A construction person, looking at this and going, ‘Oh, that’s art, is that what you call art? I do that every day,’ or the artists or collector looking at it and going, ‘Oh, now I look at a metal building in a different way,” she said.
Hamilton’s previous show was called “Workshop Grammar.” Both shows incorporated tools and other objects she inherited, such as hammers, pry bars, hardware, screws, nuts, bolts and things like that, she said.
Hamilton’s work also includes photography, representing her career in satellite communications.
For more information, visit brandihamilton.com, or visit Brandi Hamilton Studio on Facebook.