"Through representational painting, I try to more deeply connect with, and create lasting depictions of, the people, places and things I observe. I hope also to connect to the culture and inquiries of others who share or shared the pursuit, ancient and innate, of transfiguring pigments into semblances of the observed world.
The process of capturing visual "truth" is largely technical, as the eye is a mechanical structure. But all things are observed through veils of memory, meaning, and other mediations of the subjective mind. Therefore, the resulting depictions can be to varying degrees traditional or explorative, emotional or detached, scientific or spiritual...On a personal level, I consider my paintings to be testaments to time spent, souvenirs of experiences."
Bio"Born and raised in Maryland, Palden Hamilton attended the Gilman School, where he studied under Betsey Heuisler. After receiving his B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, he continued his education at the Art Students League of New York, where he studied under Ron Sherr, Harvey Dinnerstein, and Mary Beth Mckenzie. There he was awarded a Merit Award in Realism and the Phylis T. Mason Grant.
Hamilton has done a range of commissioned portrait work since returning to his hometown of Baltimore. He was notably commissioned to paint Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, the musical director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia. In 2008, 2017, and 2018, he was awarded Certificates of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America.
Hamilton has painted landscape extensively on location in his native Maryland, and on travels to his mother's homeland, the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim. As a landscape artist, he has participated in and received honors from Easton, Wayne, Solomons, and Cape Ann plein air events.
Hamilton has been a passionate art instructor for over ten years, teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), the Zoll Studio School of Fine Art, and at the Yellow Barn in Washington D.C."
