Palden Hamilton lives with his two daughters in Baltimore County, Maryland. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and went on to study at the Art Students League of New York. He is currently on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Zoll Studio, where he teaches figurative and plein air painting.

“When I was growing up, I had a deep sense that nature was vast and ancient beyond understanding. My initial attempts to draw the minutiae of nature, be it bird, root, or leaf, were attempts to in some way connect to its mysteries. In mid-life, I recognize this longing to connect as a primary and sustaining motivation for my art.”

Hamilton credits Abbott Handerson Thayer as a primary influence. How She Sleeps is reminiscent of Thayer’s painting of his own daughter Angel. Thayer was a pioneer in studying camouflage, the visual lostness and foundness of animals in relation to their environments. Hamilton has a similar fascination with the relationship of lostness/foundness, and sees it as belying a parallel exploration of what is seen/unseen, known/unknowable, material/spirit.

“In the moment depicted in the painting, I was struck by the visual contrast of the warm colors of first light hitting Alice’s face, and the dusky purple of the still-dark sky lingering on her shadow side. On another level, it shows her on the cusp of her return to the conscious Alice that I know, and her dwelling in her unknowable inner world.”