Yoruba textile traditions are part of Stephen Hamilton’s contribution to Thresholds, an exhibition currently on view at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee. The Boston-based artist combines weaving, dyeing and woodcarving with painted figures, drawing on techniques he studied in Nigeria.
The exhibition runs until 19 December at Marquette University. Hamilton’s work appears alongside that of Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Portia Cobb and Daniel Minter, with objects from the museum’s African collection placed in conversation with contemporary pieces.
Hamilton has five works in the exhibition. In an interview with Urgent Matter before the opening, he said the artists selected the collection objects that would accompany their contributions. “We were selecting the pieces that we wanted to include,” he told the publication.
His training took him to Nigeria between 2015 and 2016. His published curriculum vitae records a residency through Arts Connect International at the Nike Center for Art and Culture in Osogbo. He learned weaving, dyeing and woodcarving from specialists at the centres in Osogbo and Ogidi Ijumu.
The same record lists interviews and field research among traditional religious communities in Osogbo, Ofatedo and Ede. He developed a body of work in response to those studies. Hamilton told Urgent Matter that he spent nine months learning from Nigerian artisans and has since incorporated the techniques into his teaching.
His Oníṣàngó . . . Those Who Carry the Burden of Fire on Their Head dates from 2020. The museum lists acrylic, natural dyes and pigments among its materials, applied to hand-dyed canvas, hand-dyed burlap and handwoven cotton cloth. The work measures 123 by 82 inches.
Hamilton told Urgent Matter that the piece references Shango, the Yoruba deity associated with fire, thunder and lightning. He selected a Yoruba house post depicting a priestess with ritual bags associated with Shango to accompany it. The post originally helped support a household veranda.
His wider practice brings textile production into public art as well as gallery exhibitions. For the Boston Public Art Triennial in 2025, he created Under the Spider’s Web and Oruko Pe: The Names are Complete at Roxbury Community College. Those installations are no longer on view.
The triennial’s record describes a mixed-media work suspended in a 15-foot carved frame recalling a Nigerian upright loom. A related installation used functional looms and live weaving. Assistant woodcarver Naijah Garrett and assistant weavers Jordan Nelson and Ja’Hari Ortega contributed to the project.
Thresholds forms part of the Haggerty’s museum-wide presentation The Otherworld Is Home. Its title draws on the Yoruba proverb Ayé l’àjò, ọ̀run n’ilé, translated by the organisers as “Life is a journey, the otherworld is home.”
The exhibition was organised in partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance, the Portland, Maine, organisation supporting Black and Brown artists. Bell, Cobb and Minter bring different approaches to cultural memory through ceramics, oral history, photography, carving and assembled materials.
The museum also has an African Community Day scheduled for Saturday, 14 November, from noon to 4pm. The programme lists food, storytelling, dance, conversation and art. The Haggerty is at 1234 West Tory Hill Street and normally opens Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4.30pm. Admission is free.
Archive venue photograph: Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, 28 September 2012. Royalbroil / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized for display; not an exhibition installation or a photograph of Stephen Hamilton.
