To hold and behold

Elisa H. Hamilton's intimate, visual conversation with her great-grandmother.

 Elisa H. Hamilton, “No More Tangles,” 2023. 25-¾” x 19-⅝”, Acrylic, gouache, oil pastel and black gesso on paper. Photo courtesy the artist.

When I think of Elisa H. Hamilton’s artwork, I reflect on how she knits communities together by honoring the tender idiosyncracies of people, place, and story. Her “Jukebox” at the Foundry in Cambridge is a trove of Cantabrigians’ personal narratives in their own voices. “Sound Lab” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invited visitors to listen more closely to the sounds of Boston communities. Such projects evoke the golden ordinary that surrounds us – how miraculous it is, and how small and ripe with feeling. And how we so easily overlook it.

Elisa’s exhibition, “Sightlines,” runs May 3 - June 2 at ShowUp, where that connecting thread of life that runs through her public art projects surfaces in a more personal way. Rather than reaching out across neighborhoods, she’s reaching back through time. “No More Tangles” enters into a call-and-response with a quilt made by her great-grandmother, Big Mama.