2016 Season III & IV
Artist Statement/ Biography
Photocopying photographs he takes onto watercolour paper, Alex Hamilton manipulates usually multiple versions of the same photo. For Hamilton material changes imagination, and each of his large drawings is a unique assembly of partly erased and partly drawn areas. His work reflects his increasing familiarity with the variation found in man-made shapes, spaces and vectors, of nature and metropolitan/outlying areas. In addition to his large drawings he works in other mediums including bookworks, printing, 3D, and film/performances. Using spaces signage and texts of known places, Hamilton works through issues of erasure, disappearance, and deterioration. Exploring the reality of a place, its history, memory and future, he proposes a reality which does not yet exist, and a history which may have been.
---Assisted by grants and residencies, Hamilton’s 30 year career first took him to cities including Prague, Glasgow (School of Art residency), Salzburg, Braziers International Workshop UK and La Llama Venezuela. With 62 group and 14 solo shows since 1996, he has mainly concentrated on drawing. Represented by London gallery Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, he shows annually in the UK and internationally. Shortlisted Art Prizes include Celeste Art Prize UK 2006 2007, Marmite Art Prize UK 2008 and the John Ruskin Drawing Prize UK 2014. Publications include “Australian Artists Books” (Alex Selenitsch), “Tintin and the Secret of Literature” (Tom McCarthy), “/seconds” magazine (2006, 2007, 2008 2013) Melbourne School of Design magazine “Inflection 2”. Hamilton publishes his sketch books every two years.