A master of his medium, Frank Hamrick is an associate professor at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Georgia and a master of fine arts degree from New Mexico State University. His work is represented in major public collections, including those of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. His handmade books have been the subject of a feature on NPR, and Oxford American magazine cited him as one of its one hundred New Superstars of Southern Art in 2012. In 2017 he was awarded a Houston Center for Photography Fellowship for his limited edition artists’ book of tintype images Harder Than Writing a Good Haiku.  

In his work Hamrick mixes photography, storytelling, handmade books, and found objects. As he’s stated, “My photographs are not necessarily created to illustrate or provide answers. . . . I would prefer for the images to generate more questions. I do not see them as endpoints, but rather starting places.”

The artists’ book—not to be confused with an art book, a different kind of publication that typically reproduces two- or three-dimensional works of art that are better seen and appreciated in person—is its own thing. As he puts it, “If you were to think of a photograph in the same way you consider a single song, then an artist’s book is similar to an entire album of music complete with cover art and liner notes.