Continuing Alexander James Hamilton's long-standing engagement with Lepidoptera, Swarm explores emergence, transformation and the organisation of life through collective form. Butterfly specimens are bred within the studio and photographed underwater on large-format analogue film, each image constructed physically and resolved entirely in-camera.
Working within dark tanks of highly purified water, Hamilton uses water as an active optical condition through which light, movement and duration reorganise the visible structure of the subject. Surface tension and subtle liquid movement alter relationships between scale, colour and form, producing images in which individual specimens dissolve into larger fields of activity.
The series investigates the threshold at which singular bodies become collective phenomena. Wings accumulate into shifting architectures that oscillate between biological observation and abstraction while remaining rooted in direct physical events recorded onto film.
The resulting works exist between natural history, sculpture and photography, extending Hamilton's sustained exploration of water as a medium through which structure becomes visible.
As Jessica McBride, founder and curator of Dellasposa Gallery, observed: "An iridescent chorus of butterflies appear as apparitions."
