Jennifer JM Hamilton: Lamenting Through Objects

MFA Thesis Exhibition at artLAB Gallery, Department of Visual Arts, Western University

Jennifer JM Hamilton, Ovum (Swatch), 2026. Thread and Ink on Mulberry Paper, 24 x 38 inches. Photo: Dickson Bou, artLAB Gallery Preparator.

Jennifer JM Hamilton: Lamenting Through Objects

June 11 – 25, 2026
artLAB Gallery, London

Hamilton writes:

The conservation of domestic knowledge gains access to conversations that overstep time and space. Like most objects we utilize every day, we fail to notice them beyond their function until something causes a repositioning and a resonance to emerge. In the exhibition Lamenting Through Objects, I respond to the items I inherited after my mother’s death by utilizing mark-making as rumination—allowing care, repetition and embodiment to present itself as form. Once her creative collaborator, her sewing machine and I connect on paper, communicating with each other through our marks, visually referencing sorrow as labour. Together, interacting with these objects as conduits, we document the presence of her absence—archiving and honouring grief as a perceptual interference—connecting us with the deepest parts of ourselves. These drawings are communications utilizing process, time and observation to birth witness to a continual connection that lives in the liminal space of mourning.

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Installation: Jennifer JM Hamilton, Lamenting Through Objects, 2026. Photo: Dickson Bou, artLAB Gallery Preparator.

About the Artist

Jennifer JM Hamilton is a visual artist, arts educator, and second-generation settler of Scottish and Irish descent, living and working in London, Ontario. An award-winning printmaker, her practice embraces interdisciplinary modes, spanning printmaking, painting, drawing, textile and sculpture. Hamilton’s work explores themes of motherhood, grief, and autobiographical collecting. Her current project examines maternal collections and the ways grief can activate and shape artmaking.

Installation: Jennifer JM Hamilton, Lamenting Through Objects, 2026. Photo: Dickson Bou, artLAB Gallery Preparator.

About the Gallery

Located in the John Labatt Visual Arts Centre at Western University, the artLAB Gallery and Cohen Commons, are vital facilities within the Department of Visual Arts. Our primary focus is to act as a pedagogical tool, to support student and faculty-led research and production. Exhibitions provide a platform to respond to pertinent social and cultural issues, and/or explore conceptual, formal and material-based interests. Able to accommodate a wide range of media, both the artLAB and Cohen Commons provide space for professionalization, as well as experimental approaches to exhibition making.

Western University is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Neutral (Chonnonton) peoples, on lands connected to several Treaties including Treaty 6 London Township, Treaty 7 Sombra Township, Treaty 21 Longwoods and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum. This place continues to be home to diverse Indigenous peoples who are recognized as contemporary stewards of the land and vital contributors to society.

artLAB Gallery
John Labatt Visual Arts Centre
Western University
1151 Richmond Street
London, ON N6A 3K7
www.uwo.ca/visarts/artlab
artlab@uwo.ca
519-661-2111 ext 85855

Instagram @westernuvisarts
Facebook @westernuVisArts

Gallery Hours:
Monday – Friday, 12 – 5pm

Accessibility:
artLAB Gallery is fully accessible.

Image Descriptions:

1. Ink drawing with machine stitching and crochet on mulberry paper, hung away from the wall with large nails providing deep and long shadows underneath.

2. Installation photo from the exhibition Lamenting Through Objects. Ink drawings with stitching on mulberry paper suspended from the ceiling, hung on nails and placed on the floor. In the centre of the exhibition sits a large wooden hope chest.

3. Three drawings using ink and stitching onto mulberry paper are hung away from the wall while one drawing sits on the floor on the bottom right side of the image.