KIPNZ is pleased to present HAND JOBS (jobs for hands), an exhibition of paintings by local artist, Donna Hamilton. Hamilton is inspired by vintage 1950s LIFE magazine ads, the majority of which feature household appliances and products. Many times, a pair of hands, invariably female, tends to the object. In other cases, the female presence of household labor is simply assumed. A coffee maker, a vacuum cleaner, an iron, a TV dinner—for Hamilton, these products of household convenience imply “jobs for hands.”

This interest in the labor of hands is seen in Hamilton’s approach to painting. Hamilton creates images with one-shot enamel paint, used predominantly by sign painters who largely painted by hand. As a young person, Hamilton apprenticed with several “old school” sign painters, where everything, down to the black outlines, were painted by hand. “This form of hand-drawn advertising is almost completely extinct. It has been replaced by machines that cut vinyl precisely to what any design requires.”

Bold backgrounds and images made of outlined rudimentary shapes produce artworks that are both camp and sincere. The effect of Hamilton’s interventions in the visual language of 1950s advertising is Pop, but resolutely hand-made. For the artist, they are “simple paintings contained in black lines, from a time period that was very contained…and possibly simple.”