Book Launch: In Search of the Blue Flower

Join us to celebrate the launch of In Search of the Blue Flower: Alexander Hamilton and The Art of Cyanotype, programmed as part of Workshops Week 2023.

For over fifty years artist Alexander Hamilton has worked with plants to share their stories by revealing their unique presence through the photographic medium of cyanotype. In this special event, the artist will discuss the lasting impact a six-month residency on the uninhabited Isle of Stroma had upon his early practice and the environmental concerns and ecological themes throughout his work, followed by a Q+A and book signing.

Published by Studies in Photography as part of their Scottish Photographic Artists Series, the special edition comes with a unique cyanotype print (RRP £50).

Alexander Hamilton (b.1950) grew up in Caithness, Scotland. He studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, after qualifying, he spent 6 months recording the plants on the uninhabited island of Stroma, creating his first photogram images. This began a 40-year journey exploring connections to plants and landscape. His work was shown throughout Europe with the exhibition ‘The Peace Rose and the Pursuit of Perfection’. He also collaborated with a centre for plant research at the University Hohenheim Stuttgart on the use of plants as bio indicators, shown at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh in 2002. In 2008 a major showing of his photogram images, Blue Flora Celtica, was presented at the Foksal Gallery Warsaw. From 2002 to 2007 he worked with Richard Ashrowan, on creating a multi-screen moving image installation based on natural landscapes. These works have been exhibited at the Threshold Artspace in Perth, Ruskin Gallery in Cambridge, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Fabrycka Sztuki in Poland. In 2009 he completed a one year residency programme at Brantwood, responding to Ruskin’s ideas on ecology and botany, with funding from The Leverhulme Trust.