Hamish Walker
(Nottingham Exhibition)

Hamish Walker is a fine artist living and working in Leicester. Graduating in 2006 with a BA in Fine Art from De Montfort University he has since gone onto coordinate the activities of DOT, an initiative to provide opportunities for the discussion and creation of art in Leicester. He is also the Co-director of the ARENA Festival of Art, which had its inaugural year in 2008.

Hamish's photographs attempt to capture the exhilarating and terrifying atmosphere felt when walking through the city alone at night, where all your senses are heightened. Light reveals only details in this landscape, serving to reinforce the shadows. Familiar shapes are twisted out of recognition and the mundane become unfamiliar. We are all alone in these images, in a landscape that is both dreamlike and nightmarish. These images are full of mystery, only hints of a narrative, concentrating on the interplay of light and dark.

For Danse Macabre Hamish will produce a new body of photographic work. Focussing on the use of light and shadow in uninhabited urban spaces, Hamish intends to enhance the dreamlike and otherworldly atmosphere in these images, through further experimentation using pin-hole cameras, filters and other tools.

The influences on this body of work include the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and the films of David Lynch, sharing with them an unsettling sense of encountering the unknown. The melancholy of Edward Hopper's paintings and the emptiness of Giorgio de Chirico's meta-physical landscapes also provided inspiration for the work.

Hamish will have his first solo exhibition in April 2009 at the City Gallery Offsite.