I started out as a portrait artist and I still think in terms of portraits, whether it’s a portrait of time or a moment.
Faith Hampton’s artistic practice explores aspects of closeness, connectedness, togetherness, intimacy and spirituality. Originally from Texas, USA, Faith studied painting and drawing at the University of North Texas before moving to China for an extensive period of her life and artistic practice. Since 2017, she has been living and working in Vienna, Austria.
Artist Portrait von Faith Hampton © Daniel Nuderscher
Some artists create from a space of serenity, preparing to enter into the space. Because of the chaotic nature of my life and the lack of time to first clear out my head space and calm down, I had to figure out how to create out of the chaos and use that as an element of my work; the process of creation would have to embrace the part of coming down from chaos.
Constant repositioning and the need to adapt manifest themselves as a central element of her artistic process; the requirement for a high degree of creative flexibility creates more openness to new impulses. For Faith Hampton, creative work means constantly realigning herself and consciously allowing room for change. As she only has a limited amount of time in the studio and considers it sacred, she has developed methods that enables her to work efficiently and productively. Her artistic practice was influenced not only by personal experience, but also by infrastructural conditions: frequent change in community, environment and even national location forced her to rethink her approach to art and she began experimenting with collage and mixed media techniques. When she first moved to China, she didn’t have a car or regular access to a woodshop anymore; there were certain kinds of glues or paints that she couldn’t find either, and in Austria, it was that all over again, and in yet another language. These prompted her move away from large, bulky oil paintings on heavy panels into more portable media. Scraps of paper, old photographs or remnants of receipts, things that hold value for her, but no longer found a place of honor outside the studio, were incorporated into her artworks as fragments or parts of the visual atmosphere or foundation on top of which she structures her compositions. This has allowed her to preserve valuable memories while developing a new way of visual expression, burying little found-objects and artifacts inside her works.
Faith Hampton’s creative process often almost invariably begins with self-reflection and prayer, asking of specific questions such as “Where am I right now?”, “What’s on my mind?”, and “Is there something beautiful, true or challenging that needs to be processed?”. She sees art-making as a form of a meditative practice and silent contemplation. Instead of focusing on a concrete end result, she allows herself to be guided by an initially vague and formless feeling or idea. First, these notions are sketched on a sheet of paper. This is followed by a review of the collection of scraps, photographs and memorabilia, sorting them by hand into small piles that link thematically or emotionally to her original idea. The creative process remains deliberately disorganized and chaotic, open to spontaneous developments throughout even later phases of each work. This immediate, haptic process is essential to her artistic practice, as she creates her works from existing fragments, arranging them piece by piece on the canvas and trying to integrate them, rather than completely rethinking or burying what already exists. The procedure therefore consists of determining the conceptual and practical functioning of the elements so that they are suitable for the next step and can tell the intended story.
Dog Family of Leaves. Mixed media on paper. 58x45cm, 2022. / Blue Oranges (Jeremiah). Collage, mixed media on paper. 70×101.5cm, 2022.
I’m trying to bring unity from disparity.
Faith Hampton’s large-format, multi-layered tableaux combine three different time-levels and tell specific personal stories about herself or people from her surroundings. In this way, she aims to transform potentially negative emotions such as loss or fear into something positive, layering and transforming initial layers of symbols into others
conveying feelings of belonging, connection, love and interaction. She usually starts with the background, which is closely linked to the present and gradually transforms into the past. Depending on the context, she integrates past experiences into her work before working her way back up again to the level of the present moment. Once this foundation has been laid, she sets about transforming the existing contrasts and paradoxes into a harmonious unity by bringing the various elements into a dialogue. She strives for a deeper understanding and asks herself how she can unblock and facilitate the natural flow of things. When creating a portrait – be it of a person or an emotion – she prioritizes honoring the past, consciously locating herself in the present and reflecting on what hopeful future might emerge from it. The final transparent layers focus on unity and cohesion. The partial masking of individual elements and the transformation of the image are also a form of rejection – as if she were deliberately excluding certain aspects, sure that they will be transformed or reclaimed
. However, she is not interested in suppressing them completely, but rather in leaving the remnants of these fragments visible and preserving their traces.
Water Baby (Keight and Jon). Mixed media on paper. 47x72cm, 2024.
This is me trying to make sense of it [these stories], and I hope that when people look at my work, they feel seen and know that they matter.
For Faith Hampton, art is a conscious act of expression through which she aims to promote deeper mutual understanding, greater connection and expanded empathy. To her, art should open a space of experience in which recipients can make a personal. At the same time, her art aims to encourage reflection on one’s own position in time: “At what point do I find myself?”, “What narrative development am I going through?”, and “What past shapes me?”. This confrontation opens a space for imagination and makes it possible to develop new perspectives on personal and collective experiences. Similar to comforting words in challenging times, her work conveys the certainty that change is possible and that current conditions do not have to remain unchangeable.
Artists are always trying to tell the truth, but there are some truths that are more true than others, and there are some truths that are more life-giving than others.
Credits: Erol Serbest