about elspeth hamilton

First audio memory

Sirens and the "all clear" heard from the pram.

First visual memory

Search lights on the underside of barrage balloons through the small bathroom window.

First olfactory memory

The acrid smell of the burning "rubberdump" used a decoy for the docks.

Colour, light, shadow and water were my preoccupation in the gardens made by my father and grandfather. My senses learnt the sounds of birds and insects, of trickling water, the perfume of trees and flowers, the contrasting hues in a rich herbaceous border. This was my palette at the age of six.

School was science, nature and drama/scenery one mile from Windscale in Cumbria. A precocious introduction to the science behind the nuclear experiment after the reactor fire of 1957 shifted my perception. Watching the first sputnik orbit over the Irish Sea raised questions about a literal search for space. Archaeology at the Roman fort on Hardnot was the introduction to prime sites in a wild landscape.

After studying architecture at Liverpool University I qualified professionally. I am a self - taught painter. I have alternated commissions as a glass artist, painter and architect with design teaching, lecturing and staying at home with infant children.

Teaching has been as a unit master in architectural design at The Architectural Association, year coordinator at Westminster, The Bartlett, Kingston and Oxford Brookes, visiting lecturer at Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities, ECA, many other UK schools, UCD Dublin, Trier Germany, Witts Johannesburg and Capetown, in the USA at Cornell and Yale. I have run design workshops in Australia and New Zealand (British Council) and in Scotland.

Since 1994 I have exhibited paintings regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK.