Didier Hamey
Didier Hamey was born in 1963 in Dunkirk (France), where he grew up. He likes to cite his origins and, when we contemplate his work, it is impossible to dissociate it from the revelry that plagues this port city during Carnival, an event he never misses.
From the long moments spent in his grandmother's garden, contemplating the insects and plants, he retained a taste for walks and observing nature: he has always collected “vegetable objects” in the forest, snails and “things” by the sea, which are also for him a precious source of inspiration.
From a very early age, his parents trusted his abilities and, at the age of sixteen, enrolled him in an art school in Belgium where, through some teachers who were passionate about art, he started on this path. After an experience in the field of advertising, he entered the Fine Arts in Paris. It was there, in 1988, in a large-format printing workshop, that he gained the frenetic desire to cut and modify everything he found, leaving the mark of his incisive line, in which he used the simplest instruments because he considered them to be the best.
He sets up his studio in Montreuil, on the outskirts of Paris, in a large house lent by the city to a collective of artists.
Didier Hamey exposes a lot. In addition to presenting his work in galleries, he participated in the Triennale de Engraving in Chamallière, in the SAGA Publishing Salon and in the Print Month, at the Viaduct of the Arts, in Paris.
His work appears in numerous private and public collections: The National Fund for Contemporary Art, the National Library, the Gravelines Museum of Engraving. He also has some exhibitions abroad: Germany, Hong Kong, Spain and Hungary. In addition, the Bank of France commissioned the illustration for its annual report of accounts, and the Editions “Milles et Une Nuits”, the illustrations of the sonnets “Chimères” by Nerval.
In 2000 he won a scholarship to Casa de Velasquez in Madrid. In his “carnets de voyage d’ Espagne” we find the impressions he recorded during his stay.
