From the sold out series ‘Transparency of a dream illuminated’ I am releasing 15 unique artist proofs from the series, re-visiting the 2017 exhibition ‘Death of the Dream’ with this supporting text by Jessica McBribe, curator & director of Dellasposa Gallery, London.
The artist proof catalogue can be downloaded here…
An iridescent chorus of butterflies appear as apparitions in Alexander James Hamilton’s spellbinding series Transparency of a dream. Continuing the artist’s interest in Lepidoptera, this body of work depicts several generations of butterflies delicately overlaying one another. Inevitably, the celestial beauty of these Menelaus blue Morpho species has captured the attention of collectors.
Multiple layers of reference are woven through Transparency of a dream. With allusions to the transmission of light passing through the photographic medium, the series becomes a meditation on the recurring themes of life and mortality within the artist’s oeuvre. This investigation was triggered by the discovery that Hamilton’s estranged father had passed away and been buried two years before he was ever made aware.
In Hamilton’s highly developed artistic lexicon, butterflies signify the fleeting, beautiful, and ultimately tragic nature of life and mortality. With a strong spiritual dimension inherent to the series, the butterfly carries long-standing associations with religion and spirituality—symbolising love, regeneration, fortune, freedom, spirituality, and death. In Greek mythology, butterflies represent the souls of the departed, while in Christian tradition the emergence from the cocoon symbolises resurrection.
Observing this delicate creature undergo metamorphosis offers great hope to the artist. Just as the butterfly accepts both itself and its changing environment, Hamilton asks whether we, too, can learn to accept the transformations within our own lives.
Transparency of a dream explores these ideas through a hyper-real, painterly aesthetic created by the interaction of water’s mechanics and light. Water acts simultaneously as nurturer and destroyer, exposing the fragility and temporality of existence while holding the potential to cleanse, reinvent, or erase.
The work of Alexander James Hamilton extends beyond photography alone. His process requires the creation of a physical world before an image can exist—effectively constructing the canvas itself. Rather than capturing a spontaneous moment, Hamilton builds intricate sculptural compositions submerged in vast tanks of purified water. Light passing through this environment, intensified against darkened backdrops, lends the works their painterly presence. Photography, painting, performance, and sculpture converge, resisting simple categorisation.
To realise the surreal vision of butterfly descendants dancing together—an impossibility in nature—Hamilton layered generation upon generation of butterflies within a single transparency. This required breeding multiple generations over a two-year period.
Beginning with a parent specimen, the original scene was captured using a Sinar 8 × 10 inch plate camera loaded with a single A4 sheet of film. To suspend the butterfly in a dreamlike state, the artist employed a temperature-controlled coma—a natural phenomenon in the wild. The butterfly was then placed into a precisely cooled water tank and photographed alive but entirely unharmed.
The subtle distortions created by water’s own wave energy generate a sense of suspension and calm. Carefully directed lighting captures these deviations in liquid mechanics, refracting light onto the subject and literally painting the butterfly in light. Water neutralises the wing’s microscopic prisms, allowing full colour depth and luminosity to emerge.
After the initial parent butterflies were photographed, the plates were annotated and stored until their offspring emerged. Hamilton completed four full cycles—parent, child, grandchild, and great-grandchild—to complete the series.
A self-reflective undercurrent runs throughout Transparency of a dream, questioning the photographic medium itself. The series presents singular, complex works that examine photography’s reproducible past in contrast to its present claim to uniqueness. Hamilton’s doctrine of ‘in camera purity’ rejects digital intervention, embracing instead the unrepeatable chemical processes of analogue film.
Each image exists as a single 8 × 10 inch acetate plate, one large-format print, and two artist proofs—each differing in scale and execution. No editions are produced. In this way, photography is repositioned firmly within the realm of unique, singular works of art.
Representing the apotheosis of the artist’s critique, Transparency of a dream stands as a poignant celebration of life. The series invites contemplation of fragility, metamorphosis, and the quiet passage of time.
