One of my prints, Museum Grove 2005, was recently gifted to the Collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Australia, by the Gallery Director, Louise Tegart.
The misty intimacy of Kirrily Hammond’s ‘Nordic noir’ landscapes
Since graduating from the Canberra School of Art about 30 years ago, Kirrily Hammond has been almost a permanent fixture in the Canberra Art scene. This is her debut exhibition with the Grainger Gallery.
Hammond was born in Newcastle, received her art training in Canberra and Glasgow and, after living in Melbourne for 16 years, she settled in Copenhagen in Denmark late in 2018. The sense of place is crucial for her art, but she has never been drawn to the scenic or picturesque. There is a dark, brooding romantic sensibility that runs throughout her art, characterised by a veiled, misty light that contrasts with dark shadows.
When Hammond lived in Brunswick, Melbourne, for many years, her paintings depicted suburbia and the suburban skyline, where sinister intrigue seemed to lurk in the shadows.
With her move to the northern hemisphere and to a climate where winters are longer and daylight hours are shorter, she was again drawn to scenes like Kitchen Window, Dusk, Bønsvig Strand, and the Danish skyline.
It was the Italian surrealist artist, Giorgio de Chirico, who once observed, “There is much more mystery in the shadow of a man walking on a sunny day, than in all religions of the world”. Hammond, in her art, is drawn to this quality of the uncanny and the surreal, where nothing explicitly may be seen as happening, but in the pauses, silences and shadows, many mysteries seem to be concealed.
Her art is one of understatement, where, on a small scale, she creates deeply brooding tonal paintings, along with a few prints, in which she welcomes the darkness and a mysterious otherness.
Pot plants silhouetted against the light on a windowsill, dusk descending on a landscape setting, fading evening light over a suburban roofline with pine trees, or trees seen in the light of a sunset through a window frame.
These are some of her subjects. There is a certain casualness, informality, and everyday attitude expressed in her selection of imagery. Once selected, it is subsequently lovingly observed and recorded.
My favourite painting in the show is Sea ice, 2022, a small, almost aerial view of floating ice on water that some will identify with the bleak landscapes of Nordic noir.
There is no focal point or centre of the composition, but a sense of floating vastness that has no beginning or end.
The high horizon, sparseness, monotony of form and almost monochrome palette may bring to mind images of the Australian bush when viewed from above, but now it is a study of a frozen wasteland.
Over the course of three decades, Hammond has developed a distinctive voice in her art. In terms of her Australian forerunners, one is reminded of the misty moderns, including Clarice Beckett and others trained by the tonalist painter Max Meldrum and his disciples; however, she has made this tonal pictorial language peculiarly her own.
Hammond’s paintings are a triumph of slow art, where you are gradually seduced into an intriguing and moody world where nothing much happens, but the potential is immense. It is up to the viewer to discover the drama that lies beyond the observed reality.
Kirrily Hammond: Debut exhibition, Grainger Gallery, Building 3.3/1 Dairy Rd, Fyshwick, closes 9 November. It’s open from Wednesday to Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm.
Review published in Region, 4 November 2025
In August 2025 I established a small experimental gallery space in Copenhagen called Polygon Artspace which hosts a diverse range of exhibitions by local artists and Australian artists, creating connections and synergies through art.
The first exhibition called afklip featured the work of Danish artist and textile designer Annette (Netter) Andresen and Australian artist Simon MacEwan, whose practice spans drawing, animation, sculpture and installation. Together they created ‘afklip’, or ‘cut offs’ with a large textile collage hung from the ceiling by Annette Andresen and six tiny domed worlds created entirely from paper by Simon MacEwan.
The second exhibition at Polygon Artspace opened on the weekend. Titled Fragments of INGEN (Outis), or Fragments of Nobody (Nobody), it features recent paintings by Swedish artist Anton Örstrand, which draw inspiration from the stories of Greek mythology and their relation to contemporary life.
Stay tuned for a diverse exhibition program in 2026, featuring Island Welcome, an exhibition of contemporary jewellery made in response to Australian immigration policies; paintings by Lizzie Hall; works on paper by Peter Graham and Adele Rannes; animations by Gregor Fuchs; and sculptures by Ronnie van Hout, amongst others.
29 May – 1 June 2025
A weekend with a special focus on art happens every year on the small Danish island of Bornholm. Numerous galleries, studios, glass workshops and ceramic workshops open their doors to celebrate the diversity of practices that can be found across the island. This year is the 10th anniversary of Bornholms Kunstrunde and I was super pleased to be a part of a group exhibition at Gallerie Lorien, at Skovløkken 3, Allinge. The exhibition continues until 9 June 2025.
I’m very pleased that my work will now be represented by Grainger Gallery in Canberra.
Over many years Kacy and Richard Grainger have established their gallery in the Dairy Road Precinct of Fyshwick, representing a wide range of artists from the region and further afield. I’m so happy to retain my longstanding connection to the city where my artistic career began.
Stay tuned for my first solo exhibition at Grainger Gallery in October 2025.
Imprint Magazine, Summer 2024, Vol. 59, No.04
Julie Mehretu’s processes and practice are located within a fascinating complexity of influences and networks. In this article for Imprint magazine, the Australian Print Council’s quarterly publication, I wrote about Mehretu’s recent exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Titled ‘Ensemble’, the exhibition was a survey that spanned twenty-five years of Mehretu’s practice, shown alongside the work of Nairy Baghramian, Huma Bhabha, Tacita Dean, David Hammons, Robin Cost Lewis, Paul Pfeiffer and Jessica Rankin.
© Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection
Download the full text here
After 33 years of exhibiting art from the Canberra region and beyond, Susie and Martin Beaver of Beaver Galleries have retired and closed their gallery.
I was so fortunate to have my work represented by them for the last 23 years. I value the numerous opportunities that exhibiting regularly and being a part of their stable have offered me, from the very earliest days of my career – my first exhibition at Beaver Galleries was in 2001, to the last exhibition in mid 2024.
Here are a few images from some of the exhibitions over the years in the lovely exhibition spaces. I wish all the best to the Beaver Galleries team with their future adventures.
Art critic Sasha Grishin wrote a great review of Noctilucent at Beaver Galleries for the Canberra media site Riotact.
‘In the decade or so that I have observed Hammond’s work, she appears to be an artist drawn to the liminal space – something transitional where you are leaving the known and are about to embrace the unknown. Twilight is the time when nature is being reborn and that which was once familiar is veiled in a sense of mystery.’
In it he makes special mention of my prints: ‘A gem-like etching, Møstings Hus, is possibly the most successful image in the exhibition and captures a descending fog that veils buildings and the landscape but also conveys something of an inner luminosity. It is a cold, mysterious yet welcoming image, where a sanctuary exists behind a stone wall in all of this frozen bleakness.’
Follow this link to read the full review, or it can be downloaded here:
Noctilucent opened at Beaver Galleries in Canberra on Thursday 2 May. This exhibition of new paintings and prints was created in response to living in Scandinavia. I moved from Melbourne to Copenhagen with my family in 2018 and the quality of light, the seasons and the landscapes, are all completely different to my native Australian experience, and an ongoing source of inspiration.
It was lovely to see old friends and meet some new ones at the opening, which I shared with the Yarrenyty Arltere Artists from Alice Springs and their exhibition of soft sculptures.
Exhibition dates: 2 – 18 May 2024
Beaver Galleries, 81 Denison Street, Deakin, Canberra, Australia
10am – 5pm Tuesday to Saturday
On Saturday 20 April Maryanne Wick, Alexandra Sasse and I held a discussion about the works on display in our concurrent exhibitions Northern Landscapes and Iberia Antiqua: Still Life Landscapes.
We talked about the stories behind our works, our sources of inspiration, and the joys and challenges of maintaining an artistic practice in another country.
‘Northern Landscapes’ opened at Alexandra Sasse Gallery, Melbourne on Thursday 18 April with a speech by Dr Sheridan Palmer from the University of Melbourne, and the evening was accompanied by jazz musicians John Scurry and Eugene Ball.
Kirrily Hammond gives us a key to her insider world through her ‘quiet’ paintings, where we know that she has been there and that these works, like all works of art, are invitations into the artist’s life and vision.
Dr Sheridan Palmer
My paintings and prints depicting predominantly Northern European landscapes are exhibited alongside Maryanne Wick’s still life paintings from Southern Spain in her exhibition titled ‘Iberia Antiqua: Still Life Painting’.
Travel happens to most of us, by design or circumstance. Two Australian artists put new roots into the old and fertile soils of Northern and Southern Europe enriched with the history and place-makings of others. Their work distils what speaks to all of us, across millennia and miles.
Gallerist Alexandra Sasse
Exhibition dates: 18 April – 11 May 2024
12-5pm Thurs – Sat, 4 Selbourne Rd, Kew, Melbourne
Download pricelist
I’m currently working towards two exhibitions in Australia featuring a range of recent paintings and prints.
The first opens 6pm, 18 April 2024 at Alexandra Sasse Gallery in Melbourne. This will be a duo exhibition with Maryanne Wick and runs until 11 May.
The second opens 2 May 2024 at Beaver Galleries in Canberra, and runs until 18 May. I’ve been represented by Beaver Galleries for over 20 years, and this will be my seventh solo exhibition with the gallery.
I can’t wait to travel back to Australia to be there for the openings!
Imprint Magazine, Summer 2023, Vol 58, No. 4
I recently wrote an article for Imprint magazine about Geography Biography, an exhibition of new work by Tacita Dean at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris. The exhibition explored slow time in relation to the seasons and our own shifting landscapes through the mediums of film, photography, drawing, collage and printmaking.
The title work of the exhibition, Geography Biography (2023) was a 35 mm diptych film presented in a circular pavilion in the centre of Bourse de Commerce. Comprised of images from 20th century postcards from various parts of the world, and outtakes from her own films dating from her early days as an art student to the present, the work offered fragments of the life and memory of the artist, and according to Dean, it was an “accidental self portrait”. Also featured in the exhibition was the majestic chalk drawing on blackboard, The Wreck of Hope 2022, and Sakura (Jindai I) 2023, a photograph of a centuries old sacred Japanese cherry tree, with a hand-coloured background.
The Summer edition of the Australian magazine Imprint features my article titled Memory Itself, with the image on the cover of the Bourse de Commerce circular pavilion designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The article investigates the process and story behind the works in the exhibition, with a focus on a series of four prints titled Telomere, which were produced at BORCH Editions in Copenhagen.
I have some paintings in a group exhibition at Alexandra Sasse Gallery, Melbourne.
Titled Curator’s Choice, it features works from the studio and stockroom including the following artists: Jane Chandler, Mark Dober, Rachel Ellis, Dianne Emery, Sara Freeman, David Hamilton, Kirrily Hammond, Sallie Moffatt, Ian Parry, Evan Salmon, Alexandra Sasse, John Scurry and Maryanne Wick.
The exhibition continues until 18 November 2023.
Gallery opening hours: Thursday to Saturday, 12-5pm; otherwise by appointment +613 98152447 or [email protected]
An informal open studio evening on the 15 September to celebrate my new space in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen.
During the whole month of May, Oticon’s Kunstforening presents a large solo exhibition of my latest paintings and prints that feature a wide range of Danish landscapes – from Ballerup and Frederiksberg, to Blokhus, Fanø and Bornholm.
There will be over 35 new works that include oil paintings, etchings and lithographs created in my studio in Frederiksberg, as well as the print workshops of Borch Editions in Amager, and Statens Værksteder for Kunst, Copenhagen.
The exhibition will be presented across four Oticon venues: the headquarters in Smørum, Eriksholm Research centre in Snekkersten, as well as DGS and EPOS in Ballerup.
Artist talk and opening drinks:
16:00 – 17:00, Wednesday 3 May
Oticon Headquarters, Kongebakken 9, Smørum
I will present a talk about the works and how they were created, with detailed explanations of the printing processes, as well as a few stories about the places depicted in the artworks.
Please get in contact with me if you’d like to come along.
This painting is currently on display at the Oticon Headquarters as part of a group exhibition, until 6 January 2023.
I’m currently in the midst of editioning my latest etching ‘Møstings Hus’ at Borch Editions, where I’ve been so lucky to receive expert advice from master printers Tom Jennions and Mette Ulstrup, as well as Niels Borch Jensen. My challenge was to achieve the same glow in my prints that appears in my paintings via a bright orange underlayer. Through a long process of trial and error, I had to re-learn the art of accurate multi-layer printing (there are 4 in this print), find the right colour combination and discover the chine collé solution that brought it all together. Møstings Hus is a historical house and gallery in Copenhagen that was opposite our first apartment when we moved to Denmark. I was always intrigued and inspired by seeing it in the changing seasons, with the many trees of Frederiksberg Have surrounding it and providing an ever-changing backdrop.
I’m excited to apply this newly discovered combination of colours and printing techniques to the next series of prints, and see where it takes me. Now I can bounce between painting and printing in a more cohesive way and let the different mediums inspire new ideas. I just need to find some time to get into it!
Some exciting news – Alexandra Sasse Gallery will now be representing my work in Melbourne, Australia.
Alexandra Sasse Gallery is located in a Victorian mansion in Kew and represents a group of contemporary Australian artists who have decades of peer reviewed practice and whose work is collected by state and regional galleries. They include Jane Chandler, Elizabeth Cross, Simon Deere, Mark Dober, Rachel Ellis, Dianne Emery, David Hamilton, Sallie Moffatt, Evan Salmon, Alexandra Sasse, John Scurry and Melody Spangaro.
For further information, please visit the gallery’s website where you’ll find my artist profile and a link to my cv.
I’ve started work for my first exhibition at Alexandra Sasse Gallery in October 2023.
In the meantime, if you are in the Victorian region, enquiries about available works can be made to Alexandra via her website or [email protected].
Enquiries from Canberra and the ACT region can continue via my other Australian representative gallery Beaver Galleries.
Imprint Magazine, Autumn 2022, Vol.57, No.01
Great to see the Autumn edition of Imprint magazine in the flesh, with an article I wrote about Statens Værksteder for Kunst (SVFK) where I had a residency, as well as the work of Bjarne Werner Sørensen, Amanda Betz and Owen Armour.
