Hamilton was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1984 and raised in Florida, with family rooted in Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Hamilton received her MFA in visual arts from Columbia University, PhD in American studies from New York University, MA in African-American studies from Columbia University and two BS degrees from Florida State University.^[1]

Hamilton's relationship with the locations of her upbringing and family roots forms the cornerstone of her artwork, as particularly seen in her engagement with the landscapes of Northern Florida and Western Tennessee. Using plant matter, layered imagery, complex sounds, metal, and found objects, Hamilton creates immersive spaces that consider the ways that the American landscape contributes to our ideas of "Americana"; and social relationships to space in the face of a changing climate, particularly within the rural American south.^[2]

Hamilton is known as an interdisciplinary artist, whose artwork ranges from immersive multi-channel film installations, monumental outdoor sculpture, and environmental portraits. Hamilton refers to landscape as the "central protagonist" in her work, rather than a backdrop, and through the blending of land-centered folklore and personal family narratives, she engages haunting yet epic mythologies that address the social and political concerns of today's changing terrain.^[3][4]

Hamilton has presented solo exhibitions at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and the Joslyn Art Museum, and has also exhibited her work at Storm King Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and others. In 2021, Hamilton presented an immersive film artwork, Wacissa, on 73 screens in Times Square in New York City.^[5] She is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award^[6] and a Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant.^[7] She was a 2013-2014 fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program, sponsored by the Whitney Museum of American Art.^[8] She has been awarded artist residencies at the Studio Museum in Harlem (New York),^[1] Recess (New York)^[9] and Fundación Botín (Santander, Spain).^[10] Work by the artist is held in public collections such as the Menil Collection, Nasher Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art, the Hood Museum of Art and the Speed Art Museum.

In 2023, Hamilton's work was included in the Spirit in the Land traveling exhibition and publication, organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The show is on view at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, in 2024.^[11][12][13]

Hamilton is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery (New York and Aspen).

• 2022 Allison Janae Hamilton: Between Life and Landscape at Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia
• 2022 Allison Janae Hamilton: Recent Works at Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
• 2021 A Romance of Paradise at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York^[14]
• 2021 Wacissa at Times Square Arts, New York^[5]
• 2020 Waters of a Lower Register at Brooklyn Bridge Park via Creative Time, New York^[15]
• 2018 Allison Janae Hamilton: Pitch at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts^[3]
• 2018 Passage at Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia^[16]
• 2017 Allison Janae Hamilton: Wonder Room at Recess, New York^[17]

• The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
• Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
• Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
• Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire^[18]
• Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina^[19]
• International African American Museum, Charleston, South Carolina
• Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada^[20]
• Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts^[21]