Hugh Hamshaw Thomas

The Emerald Necklace Project

Hamshaw Thomas’ latest body of work retraces landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s steps in reverse. Where Olmsted traversed Great Britain taking inspiration for his many projects in America, Hamshaw Thomas immersed himself in the now mature Olmsted-designed linear system of parks in Boston known as the Emerald Necklace.Hamshaw Thomas’ digitally manipulated photographs have long played with, subverted and reconfigured traditional historical approaches to landscape across all the decorative arts. Subconsciously almost, there is a lingering sense of melancholia with nature as the mirror.  As in traditional Chinese painting, the human is absent and largely irrelevant and we are invited to meditate upon the natural landscape and how we experience it.