ABOUT MEL HAMILTON
Biography
Mel Hamilton is a studio artist based in Charlotte, NC, whose practice spans painting, text-based work, and 3D conceptual forms. After a successful 20+ year career in higher education administration, she transitioned into the visual arts and earned her MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She was recently honored with her first solo exhibition, Exodus, at Liggett Gallery in Tulsa, OK. Hamilton also serves as a professor of painting and drawing at Central Piedmont Community College. This past year, her work has been featured in juried and group exhibitions including ArtFields in Lake City, SC; as well as Sovereign, Honoring Bodily Autonomy and The Audacity, both at the McColl Center, where she is currently a studio artist.
Artist Statement
Falling short of my childhood dream airbrushing carnival rides, I’ve landed instead in the wildly lucrative field of conceptual art. My practice blends painting, 3D assemblage, and text-based work — often using cheeky, declarative statements to skewer bourgeois piety and idealistic nostalgia. Humor and subversion are essential parts of my toolbox.
With a background in graphic design and typography, I’m drawn to the bold directness of text-based art. Language is form, but also commentary and punchline. My recent series of paintings uses cheeky, declarative statements to poke fun at the often hollow sanctimony of high-minded ideals. These works riff on nostalgia — not the cozy kind, but the brittle, bittersweet variety that reveals how far reality falls from our idealized visions for society.
Materiality in my work is fluid: from traditional canvas to dimensional assemblage, each piece finds its voice in the medium best suited to the narrative. Whether I’m layering paint or building sculptural forms, I’m interested in the push and pull between surface and message, sincerity and satire, beauty and discomfort. The materials shift, but the goal remains: to unsettle with a wink.
