PORTFOLIO

TOUCHING

A NERVE

Linda Dawn Hammond's disturbing portraits bring us head-to-head

with the underground; and with our own prejudices

By Henry Gordillo

I enjoy photographs of nearly anything. But when Montreal photographer Linda Dawn Hammond sent in her four disturbing portfolios, I felt definately uncomfortable. Her work challenges some deep-seated emotional biases; and does this so successfully, that at times the impact is unpleasant. But then she relents and even offers some comic relief.

Some of the portfolios explore the sexuality of eccentric, bohemian characters. In others, Hammond herself models a variety of quirky guises. Some series, like Fear

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Needle points: A winged tattoo soars on the powerful biceps of a paraplegic weightlifter, while a wheelchair and metal clip bind his feet to earth. Far left: {Note: P.8} His and hers tattoos ironically note the genders of a punk couple.

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of Females, are more unsettling than others. Here, the photos are arranged vertically and show several head shots of Hammond, leering or screaming at the camera, sometimes with a set of fake vampire teeth. In other close-ups, the teeth are in her genitals.

{NOTE: ERROR!The model in Fear of Females was NOT me.}

This may sound off-putting, and it is! But the images also press buttons and force us to question our own discomfort. Why are the images so disturbing? Is there anything to them besides shock value? The other portfolios are easier to look at because they are more straightforward. In Physical Addictions, Hammond tries to wrest the term "couples" back from the exclusive domain of Middle America. She wants it to include the love of jackbooted lesbians, tattooed punks and other unusual pairs.

With subjects like flowers or bumble bees, it may not be necessary to know anything about the photographer. But with such an unusual and personal style, it is fair game to wonder if Hammond is working with a detached fascination for the bizarre or painting the world as she knows it.

"Most of the couples in Physical Addictionsare my friends," she says. She met them in Montreal hangouts like Foufounes Electrique, the oldest existing punk bar in town. Hammond is part of that milieu, which explains why she is so good at making the odd couples in front of her camera appear relaxed. "I've tried to show them as human beings rather than as freaks," she says.

Hammond, 34, says she had an average upbringing; her father was an advertising executive, her mother, a homemaker. But the offbeat and the macabre always fascinated her. "Morticia (of the Addams Family) was one of my role models as a child," she says.

Hammond left home at 17 and took journalism and film studies before settling on a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal. She stumbled into photography by accident. "The school newspaper sent me out on assignment with a camera because they couldn't afford a real photographer," she says. Hammond discovered that photography not only gave her a means of expressing herself, it made her more outgoing. "I used to be very shy," she says. "With the camera, I had more confidence and could approach people."

The series called Personal Needs is probably the most accessible. It is certainly the funniest. Here, Hammond

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Above, another leather-and-studs twosome
from the Physical Addictions series.

{NOTE: AD READS-White Male, 43, seeks a white lady who is big where it counts...}
A brainy-looking Hammond, left, may be big
where it counts, but the writer of the ad likely
had more of a dummy in mind.

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combines a genuine personal ad in the newspaper (typically, an alternative newspaper) with an image of herself as the ad's ideal. Hammond chose herself as the model partly to make an artistic statement;"From one person, you can create an infinite number of personalities"; and partly for practical reasons: "The series took a long time to produce and I didn't know anyone else who would endure all the transformations."

The photos in the series are full of irony, sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, as in Big Where It Counts, in which Hammond wears a large pair of falsies on top of her head.

The Three Part Bodyseries began three years ago when Hammond's son, then three years old, was briefly obsessed with belly buttons. Just belly buttons. "It struck me that we never allow ourselves to examine different parts of the body separately," says Hammond.

This led to the idea of portraits made from three separate body pieces; head, torso and feet. For me, the best in the series is the paraplegic power lifter, with its surprising last panel.

{NOTE: ERROR!The man in the wheelchair, Charlie is not a weightlifter.}

Most of Hammond's work is black and white, but as a confessed member of Montreal's "starving artist" community,that's more a matter of finance than choice. "I swear if I could afford a color darkroom, I'd work in color," she says. She uses either 35mm or an old 4 x 5 Graphic View camera which she bought in the 1970s from a Hollywood portrait photographer.

Hammond wants people to feel free to interpret her art as they please. But the gut response she wants is much more specific: "Nervous laughter," she says.

Blane

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