#1 Meseta de Santa Cruz von Greta Hammond

About the artist

My name is Greta Hammond, I was born in a small city called Esquel in the Argentinean Patagonia. 

I began painting at a very young age accompanied by a teacher from my hometown. When I was 15, I traveled to Denmark as an exchange student and lived one year on an island in Jutland. 

After this huge experience, I returned to Argentina and traveled to the city of La Plata to study Fine Arts. For me, art has always been a safe place, a driving force for travelling, knowing new friends and openness to new experiences and people.

When I finished my university studies in my country, a professor suggested me to begin a Master's degree in Contemporary Philosophy in Barcelona, and that was a great challenge in my professional career. The forms transformed into abstract ideas and opened me up to unknown worlds. 

One year later, I returned to Patagonia and started teaching art classes at an Art´s teacher training institute; an experience that allowed me to continue learning with others.

At the same time, my research continued, and I obtained a scholarship for Latin American artists to begin a Master's degree in artistic research at the University of Cuenca in Spain. 

Visual creation became more deeply connected to theorical studies and it prompted me to complete my doctoral thesis: "Material Poem, Intersections between Poetry and Visuality", an art research between Spain and the University of Art and Design in Lapland, Finland.

Art ist for me..

My work is a moving narrative, a living archive that I like to name as a "toolbox", a poetic space born from material and sensitive experimentation, a collection of images that I carry within me and that I want to imagine as places of openness where everything is sustained and, at the same time, floats.

In this world, art is a mechanism for develop our inner self,  allowing us to pause in a fast-paced environment and connect with others from a humanitarian, sensitive perspective that empowers our abilities.

In my teaching, I try to highlight the value of this knowledge, which tends to build bridges toward oneself and be kinder to others.

The story of this artwork is… 

This artwork is a part of a series that depicts the Patagonian landscape. For me, nature is a great teacher, guiding me to imagine mixtures of color, showing me where forms fade, where they meet and contrast. The immensity of this territory reminds me where I come from and how small and wonderful the human being is. 

I wish inArtes: 

I am very grateful that my work "Meseta de Santa Cruz" is now at the Institut inArtes, a place that believes in the transformative power of the arts in the comprehensive development of young people.