From the mid-1980s until recently, Jane Hammond selected her imagery from a picture file of some 276 clippings, assembled throughout her life, and dispersed intuitively over the surfaces of paper and canvas. Always interested in collecting data and classification—as a child she famously mapped and classified a 100-square-foot section of forest floor behind her house—Hammond has developed a visual syntax that owes much to the poetic free-association typical of Surrealist artists. This drawing typifies her complex process of building a picture in layers, from stains left by transfers, to applied-color photocopies.
