Hamish Fulton emerged in the late 1960s alongside artists including Richard Long and Gilbert and George who were exploring new forms of sculpture and landscape art. Fulton’s work in particular has always attempted to forge a direct relationship between landscape and art, where the focus in on the art as an expression of the experience of the landscape.
Fulton thought that art did not necessarily have to be tied to the production of objects and he began to take walks and document these walks via photographs and text. With influences ranging from environmentalism to Americal Indian culture, these walks have become increasingly epic in scope as Fulton decided to “only make art resulting from the experience of individual walks”. Fulton is the ‘walking artist’ where walking has become central to his work.
The output of this work is a mixture of striking photogrpahy juxtiposed with text where the viewer is able to engage with his experience. His website – http://www.hamish-fulton.com/ – is an interactive online gallery of some of this work. The site provides constantly evolving layers of images and text that meander through Fulton’s many walks. It does give a true sense of engagement with both Fulton’s work and his walks, and you can explore the content through a simple navigation device or just sit back and let it wash over you.
Fulton’s site is a rarity – it is a piece of work by an established fine artist that has successfully exploited some of the unique aspects of the online medium in order to present work in a new way.