NYAB Event - Jane Hammond "Fallen"

Jane Hammond "Fallen"

The FLAG Art Foundation

This event has ended.

Each leaf is unique, handmade by the artist, and inscribed by her with the name of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. This exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation begins with 4455 leaves.

As a memorial, Hammond’s Fallen is unusual in that it emphasizes the singularity of each individual by making his or her leaf unique. The light and delicate materials subvert the traditional expectations of enduring materials such as bronze and stone in favor of an expression of the fragility and ephemerality of life.

The artist has said: “There is something about leaves in the autumn, at the zenith of their coloration that is transcendent: they are both dematerializing and intensifying simultaneously. As their bodies become lighter, their color is becoming more and more radiant. I’ve tried to gather leaves just at this moment when the chroma is so strong it transcends the body of the leaf and becomes a kind of pure light. It rhymes with the idea of the spirit but in a way that is accessible and earthly. It’s more Emerson than Aquinas.”