Hamish Fulton
A Journey Where the Destination is not a Place but a State of Mind
November 26, 2022 – February 4, 2023

We are pleased to announce a new exhibition by the artist Hamish Fulton, his 12th with the gallery since the first in 1992.

An object cannot compete with an experience.

Hamish Fulton (b. 1946) has over the years been characterized as a sculptor, photographer, conceptual artist, and land artist. However, he characterizes himself only as a “walking artist”.

A walked line, unlike a drawn line, can never be erased.

Walking has been fundamental in Fulton’s art since 1973, after completing a 47 day walk from Duncansby Head in Northeast Scotland to Land’s End Southwest England, he decided to only make art resulting from the experience of individual walks. “If I do not walk, I cannot make a work of art.”

The facts of the walk cannot be changed, but new perspectives about the way we live today may be added.

Fulton’s art contains a wide spectrum of ideas, but it has a clear foundation in the interest of preservation of the natural environment. In this sense, he has been influenced by the deep ecology movement and the ideas of Arne Næss – “simple in means, rich in ends.”

Time and space. Time and place.

Fulton alternates between recounting and describing. Although Fulton experiences the walk firsthand, the walk texts and photographs and other media he presents in exhibitions and books, affords us the opportunity to participate in his experience.

Walking is The Constant. The Art Medium is The Variable.

His dominant mediums have for a long time been photographs, drawings, wall paintings and wall reliefs of wood, all of which contain a dated walk text. The notebook and the camera are his most important tools when on a walking journey. In the resulting artworks, the range of media and materials has broadened over time. Further, Fulton’s extensive production of books, smaller publications and mailing cards are an important medium for his works and ideas.

An idea may be stolen. An Artwork may be purchased, but a walk cannot be sold.

Over the last years Fulton has conducted a number of group walks, both indoors and outdoors. A diversity of walks can interconnect with a wide range of actions, disciplines, philosophies, environmental and political issues.

I would say, that by far the biggest and most pressing political issue of our time is ‘the need for humans to respect nature’.

Seven words, the full meaning of which touches everything in, on and of this planet.

The artworks in this exhibition comprise wallpaintings, unique works in mixed media on paper, wood reliefs and archival digital prints. They refer to several different walks – the most recent being a 21 day walking journey and 21 nights camping in Rondane National Park, Norway, September 2022.