Inspired by her passion for oceans, award-winning conceptual and environmental artist and photographer, Andrea Hamilton, has joined forces with 25 internationally acclaimed, environmentally driven artists and the Blue Marine Foundation to create the Blue Minds art exhibition.
Blue Minds is an exhibition that frames the ocean as an endless source of inspiration, highlighting why a healthy ocean matters. Rather than focusing purely on visual art, in the form of paintings and photography, Blue Minds offers a fully immersive experience, with ceramics, sculpture and wearable art brands alongside the more traditional images and installations. The exhibition also aims to get people talking about the environment with workshops, talks and interactive media and discussion rooms.
“Our oceans have always been important to me,” said Hamilton. “With Blue Minds, we are really asking two central questions: why are we disconnected and how can artists help us to find creative solutions to ocean conservation?”
Best known for her extensive images of the ocean, natural phenomena and the Kelvin scale (how light changes with temperature), Hamilton’s work encompasses numerous photographic genres, including portraiture, still life, long exposure and landscape. Her systematic collection of subjects within a strict conceptual framework, such as Chroma, Tidal Resonance and Luminous Icescapes, over extended time periods has resulted in comprehensive archives.
Her work is held in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Vault 100, and has been published in numerous books, including London Everyday for the Mayor of London. Her most recent accolade was Gold at the Tokyo International Foto Awards in 2020. Highly collaborative, she also initiated a collateral research project, The Colour Project, with curator Nico Kos Earle – who co-curated Blue Minds alongside Hamilton and Julia Campbell Carter – to support the extensive research on colour and emotions, inspired by her Sea Colour Library.
“Everyone in the show has come together because they are inspired by the tireless work of marine biologists and in association with the Blue Marine Foundation, Blue Minds exhibition makes explicit the mutuality artists share with scientists,” said Hamilton. “Both have a deep, constant observation of their subject; both are seeking to make us aware of problems like overfishing and pollution, and both use creativity to find solutions and give us hope.”
The world’s oceans, lakes, rivers and wetlands, collectively known as blue space, cover 71% of our planet. As the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth’s climate is increasingly understood, the extent to which extracting life from the ocean is damaging its capacity to absorb CO2 and release oxygen becomes more apparent.
By showing works that reflect a contemporary awareness of climate change and how this has altered our relationship with the ocean – not just of its impact on us, but our impact on it – Blue Minds aims to address our disconnection and offer a meaningful connection through which we might collectively turn the tide.
“Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bit you consume,” said Sylvia Earle of the Blue Marine Foundation. “Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.”
“No water, no life. No blue, no green.”
The Blue Minds exhibition opens on 24 June 2021 at 127 Sloane Street, London. 15% of proceeds from the exhibition will go to the Blue Marine Foundation to support its ongoing marine conservation work.
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