Darcy Hamond’s practice is rooted in using paint to explore the complicated parasocial relationships our society has formed with recognisable figures through time. From stars of the screen to renowned portraits from the past, Hamond’s work depicts these familiarities by using the medium as a tool for photographic analysis, and through the repetition of imagery translates the tangible into looser visuals. Her self is always present in her practice, sometimes in indecipherably intertwined degrees.

A close-up photograph of BA Fine Art student Darcy Hamond’s large wooden lady, painted as if she’s asleep.

It is the ambiguity of how her paint application invites her audience to decipher meaning that fascinates Hamond most of all, seen in the sustained interpretability in her work’s various iterations. With time, these ideas have evolved to encompass the wider ideas of what it means to look, and be looked at.

Blue and yellow painting depicting the view of the ‘Venus de Milo’ at the Louvre from behind.
Warm painting by Darcy Hamond depicting a woman visually similar to Marilyn Monroe, asleep.
A pink relief print depicting the statue ‘Forever Marilyn’ (2011) being upskirted.
A fluid blue, yellow and predominantly white painting of a woman resting upon her bed, emphasised by her shadowy-blue room.