Practice — Alexander James Hamilton

The photograph is a physical event. Light acts upon matter over time within constructed conditions.

The practice has developed across four decades through remote expeditions, extended residencies, site reactivation and the construction of research infrastructures.

Photography forms the central axis. Other media are employed in direct support of photographic production. Each project establishes a controlled environment in which sculptural staging, water and light converge. Water acts as both medium and lens. Its surface tension is deliberately worked to direct light caustics across the subject, painting it in light as the event is recorded directly onto film.

The photograph is the sole material resolution of a physical event. It is initiated by conditions that cannot be fully defined in advance and realised through negotiation between constructed systems and natural forces.

The unsayable is not buried inside the image. It is what prompts it in the first place.

All works produced after November 2013 are realised as unique photographic objects, accompanied by two artist’s proofs that differ in scale and execution. No editions are released.

Alexander James Hamilton
b. 1967, London.
water, light and photographic process
studio, Madrid.