David Hamilton's Painting
Airship Over The Big Beach Busk
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In 2022 I was playing the Big Beach Busk in Portobello. Little did I know that a great painter was walking by and decided to paint the scene. He created a slightly surreal painting with only my little piano, my hat, a girl with her dog and an airship floating above. This is so interesting as the promenade was crowded that day, and this is the way David creates incredible art works, by reducing images to very few but poignant subjects. There is a lot of space in his painting, which I think is wonderful.
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David Hamilton
​​Acrylic on canvas
101cm x 76cm
David's description of the painting
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David writes on instagram on 9/4/2022: "I am really delighted to have this painting titled “Airship Over the Big Beach Busk” selected for the 192nd RHA Annual Exhibition.
This painting was created during the first lockdown and it was my way of recalling happier times during those earlier gloomier ones. It is a derivative of a photograph I took on a day out with friends at The Big Beach Busk, a performance and music event in Portobello, Edinburgh.
In the piece I wanted to try and capture that moment of connection between the listener and the musician, leaving we the viewers not only as the privileged spectators but also as participants, connected to the scene by the gaze of my friends dog Bea. I also tried to reimagine how the music sounded as it drifted softly from the piano keys, the notes feeling lighter than air, floating effortlessly like a metaphorical airship above the sea."
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David Hamilton is an award winning artist from Northern Ireland who studied at the University of Ulster, Belfast.
​Airship Over The Big Beach Busk has been shown at the Royal Ulster Academy in Belfast and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.
See more work by David Hamilton: David's paintings on instagram
David Hamilton with 'Be Yourself', another painting of Portobello Beach
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