ABOUT
Andrea Jarvis Hamilton (born in 1968, Lima, Peru) is a UK-based conceptual artist and photographer best known for her extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of the ocean, natural phenomena, and the Kelvin scale. Her work encompasses numerous photographic genres including portraiture, still life, long exposure and landscape. Her systematic collection of subjects within a strict conceptual framework (Chroma, Tidal Resonance and Luminous Icescapes) over extended time periods has resulted in comprehensive archives. These are retrospectively organised according to common visual characteristics (movement, colour, light) into series which highlight specific themes: the nature of time and memory, our relationship with the environment, colour theory, being, and the representation of truth.
Hamilton’s works frequently examine the durational capacity of photography and the contingency of both past and future, as related in Roland Barthes’ notion of time. For example, in her Water Works series Tidal Resonance, shown at Delahunty in 2014, we see the ocean preserved in the infinite present; time suspended in motion. Hamilton is interested in the transformative power of the camera to turn one representation of nature into another. Her Panterfällen series of photographic images, taken in 2008 during a trip to the Biological Museum in Djurgården, shift the static diorama into a landscape portrait.
Hamilton frequently employs photography to create images that highlight the emotional potential of our environment. Since 2000 she has been building a series of seascape photographs, Colour of Time, into a library of more than 16,000 images. Seeking to capture the maximum chromatic variation in one place through rigorous documentation, Hamilton sets constant parameters of location and distance of tripod from the water’s edge, centring the frame on the horizon line.
Time and Water is the first book from this series exclusively featuring black and white, long-exposure images of the ocean. In these she questions the nature of perception, the fabric of memory and our experience of time through the process of repetition and constancy. “My photographs follow the law of a series, and the notion of ‘the serial’, capturing the changing mood of nature from a single constant standpoint,” she states. Using a large-format Hasselblad camera and maximum exposure times (15 minutes) in moonlight, she creates smooth, time-worn images where the ocean’s surface appears almost geological, as if fixed permanently in formation.
In the next chapter from Colour of Time, Hamilton introduces A Nomenclature of Seachroma, a project that examines our experience of hues through time, memory and culture. Hamilton’s starting point was a taxonomic guide to the shades of the natural world, first published in 1814: Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours. Comprised of monochromes, duochromes and trichomes, Hamilton rigorously matches the colours with ancient pigments, minerals or flora and then explores the story of each hue through history of art, culture and colour theory. The next chapter, We are the Weather, is a series of seascapes based on the Romantic tradition and the idea that we are not distinct to nature but a part of it.
Hamilton has published three books of photographs. Her first, AH20, published in 2014, collects together works created under the Tidal Resonance and Luminous Icescapes series, and includes an introduction by Rabih Hage and essays by Anthony Downey and Ben Eastham. In 2015 she was one of the photographers commissioned to photograph London’s creative scene for London Burning: Portraits of a Creative City. The book includes interviews and photographs of various creative personalities including Edmund de Waal, Tamara Rojo, Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Matthew Slotover. Meanwhile London Every Day (2015), commissioned by The Mayor’s Fund for London, focused on street photography and the beauty and creativity of regular life. London Every Day includes an introduction by Charlotte Cotton, plus contributions from David Adjaye, John Frieda, Anish Kapoor, Sir Elton John, Mary McCartney, Martin Sorrell and Charlize Theron and many more.
Recent commissions include a three-metre wall in a subterranean section of The Jokulsarlon Lagoon‘s visitor building and the façade of the Flannels flagship shop on Oxford Street (coming soon).
PUBLICATIONS
Berlin Foto Biennale, 4th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, 2016.
The Life Framer Edition II, Life Framer, 2016.
London Every Day by Andrea Hamilton, Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2015.
London Burning: Portraits from a Creative City by Hossein Amirsadeghi, Maryam Eisler and Andrea Hamilton, TransGlobe Publishing & Thames and Hudson, 2015.
Arte Laguna Prize, MoCA Modern Contemporary Art. 9th International Arte Laguna Prize Catalogue, 2015.
Julia Margaret Cameron Award, The Gala Awards, 2015.
Water Works by Andrea Hamilton, Delahunty Gallery, 2014.
OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS
2021 Winner of International Contemporary Art Exhibition in Venice – ITSLIQUID International Contest 8th Edition 2021.
2021 Juror’s Award – Quiet Landscape Category, PhotoPlace Gallery.
2020 Gold Winner, Science – Environment Category, Tokyo International Foto Awards.
2020 Gold Winner, Advertising – Travel/Turism Category, Tokyo International Foto Awards.
2020 Silver Winner, Editorial – Environment Category, Tokyo International Foto Awards.
2016 Juror’s Honorable Mention at Tokyo International Photo Awards, Japan.
2016 Mark of Excellence I shot It, Landscape Photo Competition.
2015 Second Prize “AN INSTANT” Contest LIFE FRAMER Award.
2015 Finalist at 9th International Arte Laguna Prize, Italy.
2015 Mark of Excellence I shot It, Landscape Photo Competition.
2015 Finalist at 7th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers.
2015 Juror’s Honorable Mention at Landscapes Awards, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
2015 Finalist at 9th International Arte Laguna Prize, Venice, Italy.
2014 Finalist at Royal Photographic Society.
2014 Honorable Mention, International Photography Awards (IPA).
2013 Winner at the Association of Photographers Open Awards.
2012 Shortlisted at the Sony World Photography Awards, London.
2011 Shortlisted at the Association of Photographers Open Awards.
INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
2019 Seachroma, 127 Sloane Street, London, United Kingdom.
2016 London Every Day, London City Hall, United Kingdom.
2015 London Every Day, Halcyon Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
2014 Water Works, Delahunty Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Bone Powder Cloud: 68 Kinnerton Street, London, United Kingdom.
2022 Between Two Worlds, The Poetic of Coastal Places: 68 Kinnerton Street, London, United Kingdom.
2021 Soshiro, Townhouse Collective: 23 Welbeck Street, London, United Kingdom.
2021 Blue Minds, Turning Tides: 127 Sloane Street, London, United Kingdom.
2021 Light Works: 68 Kinnerton Street, London, United Kingdom.
2017 Art Aspen Fair, Aspen, Colorado, USA. Light Works.
2017 The Blue Edition: Art Wynwood, Art Wynwood Fair, Miami, Florida, USA.
2017 The Blue Edition: Miami, Art Bastion Gallery, Miami, Florida, USA.
2017 Tokyo International Foto Awards Owada Gallery, Tokyo.
2017 Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, West Beach, Florida, USA.
2016 Context Art Miami Miami, Florida, USA.
2016 The Blue Edition 68 Kinnerton Street, London, UK.
2016 Scared Geometries, Art Bastion Gallery, Miami, USA.
2016 4th Berlin Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography at Palazzo Italia in Berlin, Germany.
2016 Life Framer Photo Exhibition, Officine Fotographiche, Rome, Italy.
2016 Life Framer Photo Exhibition, Menier Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
2015 Life Framer Photo Exhibition, Juraplatz Art Space, Biel, Switzerland.
2015 Life Framer Photo Exhibition, Oberkampg Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.
2015 Life Framer Photo Exhibition, Think Tank Gallery, Paris, France.
2015 Landscapes, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
2015 9th International Arte Laguna Prize, Arsenale, Venice, Italy.
2012 The Royal Photographic Society 155th International Print Exhibition, United Kingdom.
2012 Shortlisted at the Sony World Photography Awards, London, United Kingdom.
2011 Selected for Exhibition at the Old Court House Arts Center, Woodstock, Illinois, USA.
2011 Exhibition at The Art Council Annual Juried Exhibition Stuart, Florida, USA.