Hammer Chen

The Light Collector

Jackson's Art Prize 2024, Bankside Gallery 2024
Aquatint, Copper Photogravure, Etching
Paper
54 x 43.5 cm

£390

“My work is informed by the idea of memory, travel, and arousing a nostalgic sense through cinematic imagery. I explore how to best echo the transformation from factual documentation to personal perception, through the manipulation of photography on a printmaking matrix. My images are not only of a lived reality: they are imagined memories rebuilt from collective experiences. I start from a photographic archive or subjects I am repeatedly drawn to —the light in the dark, the potential interaction of characters. The images are like scenes from a stage set, portraying a sense of communal disconnection. The settings are open to interpretation and filled with tension or expectation, the anticipation of what is about to happen.”