ARTIST PROFILE: ANT HAMLYN
Soft sculpture that turns the familiar into something worth a second look.
Ant Hamlyn’s work might already be more familiar than you realise. You’ll find it across a few of our spaces, from the inflating daisies at Bondi Green to the cactus at Paradise and Lattice at Holland Park Café. Playful at first glance, but with something slightly unexpected underneath.
Working with hand-sewn soft sculpture, Hamlyn takes everyday objects and shifts them off course. Things feel pressed, deflated or held in place, like moments that have just passed or memories caught mid-way through fading. There’s often a sense you’ve arrived just after something’s happened, the aftermath of a celebration, or the remnants of something once full of life.
Much of his work draws on food, celebration and domestic life. Tables half-cleared, objects out of use, familiar details that carry more weight when they’re stilled. By flattening and preserving these forms, he removes their function. What’s left is something closer to a trace or imprint, a version of the original that feels both recognisable and slightly off.
Up close, the detail becomes clearer. Each piece is meticulously made by hand, cut, stitched and layered from fabric, often built up from hundreds of individual elements. There’s a tactility to the work that draws you in, surfaces that look soft but structured, familiar but not quite as they should be. The longer you spend with it, the more it reveals.
It sits naturally in our spaces for that reason. Daisy Green has always been about everyday rituals, coffee, conversation, shared tables, and Hamlyn’s work reflects that world back to us, just slightly altered. Something to notice between sips, or on your way out, that might shift how you see the ordinary.
Now based in Lewes, East Sussex, he continues to develop his practice across sculpture and installation, building a body of work that lingers somewhere between memory and the present moment.
@anthamlyn