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Hamilton Glass: “Firewood”

2025 , BHMVA

Ham Glass portrait

 

Hamilton Glass’s career as an artist stems from his architecture and design background. Despite working in the architecture field for 7 years, his passion for public art pushed him to start a career as an artist. Public art has always been a big influence and inspiration of his, because of its power to influence and inspire the surrounding community. With every project he is given to create, a message is built in that connects the work to the community to in which it lives. Hamilton’s work usually distinguished by his use of architectural elements with bright vivid colors and sharp lines. The colors and unpredictable lines  are used to convey a certain energy and movement in each piece. 

 

  • Hymns to Hiphop
  • Painting
  • 48in x 48in x 1.5in

Artist Statement:  

“Firewood” is a visual elegy to the soul of blues music—a genre born from struggle, resilience, and raw emotion. In this painting, smoke coils from the man and his guitar, in deep communion with his memories. 

Aged hands cradle a worn guitar. The guitar is not just an instrument, it is the firewood warming the hearts of all who can hear its wail. The stories that feed the blues are burned for warmth, for everyone to feel. 

Blues, like firewood, is elemental. It is a resource pulled from hardship, split and stacked from generations of African American history, labor, and loss. The genre gave voice to the voiceless, and Firewood aims to capture that moment where music becomes both a release and a reckoning. 

Through this painting, I seek to honor the unspoken stories behind the blues notes—the aching silence, the healing fire, and the enduring power of art to translate suffering into sound. 

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