Washington, DC: Hamiltonian Artists is pleased to present the opening of Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms, with Luke Ikard in collaboration with Joshua Gamma, both at momentous junctures in their lives, revisiting the bedrooms of their youth. Through the playful combination of distorted domestic objects, playground equipment, and a time-warped soundtrack of memory, the artists create an installation and sculptural sound piece that recalls their childhoods and knowingly recreates an inaccurate representation of a past home.

Ikard explores the additive and subtractive nature of bunk beds as his language of longing. By fusing the intimate, fraternal space of the bunk bed with the public commons of the playground, Ikard plays with childhood conceptions of familiarity and safety. The fragmentary, fort-like domestic structures of Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms function both as objects of play and places of rest, existing in the liminal space between mourning one’s childhood familial relationships and the hope of constructing one’s own future.

Gamma’s contribution to Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms consists of a compilation of cassette sound and image collages made by the artist as a kid. Composed of song snippets, radio static, local commercials, sermons, and various oddities, these cassette works provide an idiosyncratic glimpse into the pre-internet, pre-corporate-FM-takeover airwaves of South-Central Louisiana. The revisited work finds Gamma, a new father, digging back into his childhood archives—reflecting on the excitement of discovery and genreless freedom afforded by the playful practice of his youth, and on the profound cultural exchange that radio can be untethered from bland monoculture.

About the artists

Luke Ikard (b. 1990, Houston, TX) is a multidisciplinary artist who recently moved to Washington, D.C. from Baltimore, MD, where he was an Artist in Residence at the School 33 Art Center. He is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Maryland Institute College of Art teaching courses that survey a wide variety of subjects such as: prototyping, emerging technologies, experimental sound and video work. He completed his MFA in Multidisciplinary Art from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2017, and he earned his BFA in Studio Art from Sam Houston State University in 2014. He received the 2015-2017 Merit Scholarship from the Mount Royal School of Art. His work is part of the College of Fine Art and Mass Communication permanent collection at Sam Houston State University. Ikard has also produced site-specific work at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum Park and has exhibited throughout the United States. His work has most recently been shown in group exhibitions at the International Art Gallery in the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Walter Otero Contemporary Art in San Juan, PR and On Canal with Chameleon Gallery in New York City, NY.

Joshua Gamma is an artist, curator, and designer based in Baltimore, Maryland. His practice lives at the crossroads of art, design, music, history, and activism. Gamma’s nomadic childhood as the son of a U.S. Coast Guardsman and his own service in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan inform his multifaceted work, as do his experiences as a community radio DJ, the singer in the Austin-based punk band The Mole People, and a member of various art and activist collectives. Gamma received a BFA in Design and a BA in Studio Art from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore. In addition to being the Emerging Curator in Residence at VisArts in Rockville, MD, Gamma is the Design Director at Current Movements, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit connecting activists, organizations, and movements around the world using film, art, and technology. Gamma is currently designing a series of artist archive books with Minerva Projects, Pine Plains, NY.

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The exhibition will be on view from Saturday, July 10, through Saturday, August 21, 2021. Join us on Saturday, July 10, for an opening reception from 4–7 pm. Mark your calendars for the “In the Gallery” Artist Talk with Luke Ikard and Joshua Gamma Wednesday, August 11th at 7pm.

This exhibition is on view at Hamiltonian Artists, 1353 U St NW, Washington, DC 20009.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11 am – 6 pm. Walk-ins welcome. Admission to the gallery is always free.