Artwork copyright Joanne Hammer. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2019.

Typhoon, 1984

Joanne Hammer
American (born 1947)

Location: Granite Falls School District, Granite Falls

About the Artwork

Typhoon is an abstract painting by artist Joanne Hammer. It is part of a group of paintings inspired by the artist’s experience living on a sailboat in the Hawaiian Islands. She notes that this painting “refers to an ill-fated voyage. The painting does not offer a literal accounting of the trip so much as my memory of it at a distance of some years. In my work there is always a narrative thread but it becomes entwined with what came later, and with how perception is colored and altered with the passage of time.”

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Granite Falls School District.

About the Artist

Born in Seattle, Hammer studied as an undergraduate at the University of Washington and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in textile design from the University of Hawaii in 1977. She returned to the Pacific Northwest, settling on Vashon Island in South Puget Sound, Western Washington, where she lives and works.