ABIGAIL HAMPSEY

Abigail Hampsey is a working class painter, maker, storyteller and imaginer. Born in Lancashire (1996) She received her BA in Fine Art from Newcastle University (2019) and her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2022). Hampsey’s work has been exhibited throughout the UK, Including WORKPLACE Gallery, London, OHSH Projects, London, The Holden Gallery, Manchester and Gallagher and Turner, Newcastle, amongst others. Hampsey was the recipient of The Basil H.Alkazzi Scholarship Award in painting at the Royal College of Art (2020-22) and has been shortlisted for multiple awards such as the Beep Painting Biennale and the Jacksons Art Prize (2023). As well as this, Hampsey is a Painting Tutor at Newcastle University, A Baker, Farm Hand, Barista and the newest member of the Contemporary British Painting Collective (2023). Hampsey’s practice is interested in the overall exploration of landscape. Landscapes of the mind, of narrative and of the world around her. Returning to the landscape of her youth after completing her MA in London, the artist is, for the first time, representing these landscapes first hand. Works are conceived during long walks and runs into the unfolding fields and fells that make up her local area. She documents what she sees and the conversations she has using drawings, writing and photography. Although Hampsey’s practice is born out of a deep compulsion to be outdoors, her work is laced with an underlying sense of sadness and loss. Loss of our “wild” spaces, the loss of rural places, traditions, crafts and communities that connect us to our landscapes and their histories. Her obsessive archiving and documentation can’t help but feel like a tragic recognition of time running out. These feelings of loss have made their way into Hampsey’s work in the form of sculpture, craft, participatory works/ workshops and poetry, as well as in her painting. She invites herself as well as others to contemplate more clearly the rural worlds and people that may lie just beyond our sights. Peat bog, poets, sandstone, limestone, hag stones, dry stone, cairns, carvers, forests, fells and fairy folk populate the artists waking and sleeping moments, wandering their way into her work as if all this painted world is her reality. All the while, her work continually references the reality of daily life living and working in the North West of England. Both now and in her own families histories. Acknowledging the industries and materials of her hometown family heritage. Smiths, farmers, walkers and Wallers. Witches and window makers. All stories, fact or fiction, are up for grabs.