Hamersma UK: 1980s

Cyril Hamersma - Artist - 1919 to 1994

Also a prolific writer and inventor . . .

Born 1919, London
Painted from an early age
Served in Royal Army Medical
Corps 1939-45
Taught art to fellow prisoners in Stalag VIIIB
Caring jobs
throughout his life to make ends meet
Married and with four daughters
Died 1994, Essex

This man could paint. See his self-portraits: 1965, 1983, 1992. See his landscapes, 'The Cornfield' and his nudes. He also understood the value of abstract art in touching people's awareness and he conveyed ideas through images which provoked enlightenment, pleasure and emotion in the viewers. Hamersma’s artwork regularly focused on the simple things in life: a juicy red apple; a welcoming pot of tea; a freshly fried egg – the basics of which he was, along with many thousands of men, deprived for four years as a prisoner of war in Germany in World War II. Abstract explorations were similarly derivative. He was fascinated by ‘the line’ in art. Where does one object finish and another begin, when you look at them as a two dimensional image? And every object is made up of cells, minuscule cells invisible to the naked eye but Hamersma exploded ideas and looked further into them, painting and drawing ‘cells’; images made up of cells; ‘metaphysical cell structures’ which led him to invent the Squircle. It was his Squircle work that became the pinnacle. “The Squircle is Art, Science and Religion – together in one image,” he said in January 1994. “Light invites everyone to join the fight against the darkness. Our hearts and eyes are drawn together to eliminate and squeeze,” he wrote in March 1994

Thursday 25 October 2007

1980s

Colours and ideas continued to fill Hamersma's head. He made every effort to visit new places, experiment with his recurring themes and introduce new angles on similar ideas.

Despite the appearance in the exhibits here, these paintings are called 'Metaphysical Cell Structures' - not Squircles, because he hadn't yet established their name.

This is the famous watertower for which Hamersma was laughed at on TV for proposing to decorate as a toadstool. He suggested it would be appropriate in commemorating the great botanist John Ray who was born near Braintree and whose work is charted in Braintree District Museum.

Nowadays, the watertower is incorporated into residential flats and Hamersma's canon of artwork is in safe-keeping, too, at Braintree District Museum.