09/02/2026
🎨 NEW AT ART OUTSIDE: "Token" by Christian Hamrick opens tomorrow, September 3! at Porter Park Plaza ✨
Towering ten feet tall, this angelic sculpture of wood, canvas, and acrylic is covered in hand-painted messages of gratitude and hope, a piece of art that is meant not just to be seen, but to be felt. Come stand beneath "Token" and let it activate a little space inside you too. 🕊️
📍 Opening September 3, 2026
Artist Statement
"Token" is an artwork of gratitude and hope. To make the sculpture, I painted a cluster of messages on strips of canvas and hung them from a constructed angelic form. These messages express thanks, gratitude, and hope directed at and for observers.
One of the most wonderful things that art can do (sculpture in particular) is to activate space. Certainly, there is an effort and consideration of the "physical" activation of space in a formal or aesthetic sense–yet, in my own work at least, I believe activation of internal space is the most beautiful thing that art can do.
So, I do sincerely hope that the work is not something to simply be looked at or to decorate space. Rather, I hope there is an interaction between observer and artwork; an opportunity rather than an object; the beginning of something rather than an end result.
About
The hospital in Eufaula, Alabama stopped delivering babies a few years before he came along, so his folks drove on over to Cuthbert, Georgia, and Christian Hamrick was born there in July of 1989. Shortly after, they drove on back to Eufaula, Alabama where Hamrick and his 7 brothers and sisters would spend their childhood.
They had no TV when they were children, so Hamrick's mother let them paint on the floors and walls of their house. Once they grew up, he just kept on painting.
After studying Chemical Engineering at Auburn University, Hamrick began living and creating sculptures and paintings in an empty cotton shipping warehouse in Opelika, Alabama, and intermittently hitchhiking through the United States.
After a few years, he bought a $200 used car and drove straight to San Francisco, stopping only once (in the Mojave Desert, when the car broke down). Hamrick found home living in a Robotic Burlesque theater while creating murals, paintings, and sculpture in and around San Francisco and the Bay Area, working in prop production studios, and taking on art projects for various entities, venturing out to Burning Man.
Hamrick would go on to travel, paint, study, and exhibit in Paris, Stockholm, and Zurich as well as parts of Central and South America before landing in New York City. During his time in New York, Hamrick worked with internationally renowned theaters, filmmakers, architects, museums, and artists on collaborative projects, jobs, and exhibitions, while maintaining an active, prolific studio practice.
In August 2021, Hamrick returned to Eufaula, Alabama, where he currently lives and maintains his studio practice, gardens, and takes painting lessons from his son.
Art Outside is an Art in Public Places program of temporary outdoor installations by different artists throughout the year. It is supported by the Alabama State Council on the Arts and presented in partnership with the City of Dothan.
APP's mission is to foster a thriving arts ecosystem in the Wiregrass by enriching public art and community-driven art experiences.
