Hamish Thomas Dobbie

18ct Yellow Gold Treasure Box 'Love Silo'

Hamish Dobbie has been a practicing silversmith working in Glasgow since 2013.

Although born and raised in London, his practice has been honed in the Scottish countryside. He is at his happiest on a mountain with a dram.

Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 2013, Hamish has exhibited at Goldsmiths’ Fair eight times and has had work acquired by The National Museum of Scotland, The Pearson Collection as well as The Goldsmiths’ Company. He has also been Secretary for Contemporary British Silversmiths.

Portrait of Hamish Dobbie in the Countryside of Scotland Facing camera.

Hamish has created a body of objects that are a direct response to his personal experiences throughout the pandemic and the dissertation completed in his first year. Having had a very self-reflective two years he has questioned many elements of his life, including his relationship with his new again home of London as well as his working life.

Hamish has focused on the state of his industry; how it has changed and stagnated. He considered the changes that need to be made and the directions that could be taken by silversmiths working now, exploring some of those directions though the course.

The three objects Hamish has made explore different elements of his dissertation on the current state of silversmithing. 'Small working' as it is called in the trade, is explored through 'Love Silo'. Silver table sculpture with 'Place Silo' and larger scale bronze sculpture with 'Family Silo'.

This collection of ‘Silos’ uses interaction, and, specifically, Hamish’s interactions with place, his family and his love as the impetus for the works. The intent is to show the challenges of those relationships, the tension, the passion but also the ease and the joy.

The concept of these pieces being ‘silos’ does not mean that they are completed and finished. Rather they allow me to isolate elements of singular relationships and interrogate them in more depth. I explore the issues within that element and consider my response to them in a more controlled, clear manner. Though I have used these very personal elements of my life as the impetus for these pieces, I consider them to be universal ‘a-conceptual’ objects which could be dealing with community, politics, social discourse as well as others personal interactions.

Close up of the painted texture of this large bronze sculpture. The intense rugged texture moving towards each other.

Full image of the bronze sculpture in a white walled room. The high contrast dark red texture contrasting strongly with the room

This bronze sculpture is the first of a new series of works by Hamish. In creating the painted textures of this sculpture, Hamish wished to expand the scale of the surface that was being worked on. This lead to this bronze object coming to life.

Challenging the casting process in both scale and thickness, this object is the result of much material-lead research producing a strong collaboration between Hamish and the technical staff of the RCA.

Each layer was cast separately and joined to the next. The painted texture of the surface was created through the build-up with many smaller notes creating a cacophony of mixed marks crashing and flowing against each other.

At the level edges of each layer, the surface is left bright showing the raw bronze beneath. This contrast between the organic flowing texture of the surface and the geometric clean cuts emphasises the interaction between the different levels.

The future direction of this work is anticipated to be both within the domestic realm as well as the public sphere. The scale and application of this work has the potential to become large public art with several concepts underway.

Medium:

Bronze

Size:

80 x 25 x 25cm

A silver multi-layer table sculpture. The surface is textured with a mixture of painted textures. The layers are dislocated.

Place Silo

A table scaled sculpture made in Sterling Silver. The piece uses the interaction between two places as the basis of its separation into a number of parts. In one place the artist feels calm and in the other, un-nerved.

As if jumping back and forth between each location, the sections of the piece are arranged to alternate between the two, producing noticeable textural changes and the form is finally settled into a dislocated stack of varying widths.

Medium:

Sterling Silver

Size:

20 x 8 x 8cm

solid gold box made in two halves, delicately cradled in both hands. The box is made with cast paint strokes in solid gold.

Side view of this piece showing the central bar crossing the object as well as the textured sides.

This small, delicate box was made using traditional Goldsmithing processes. Working from a single investment of pure 24ct gold weighing 125g, Hamish alloyed the metal to 18ct (750) and worked it into the various castings, sheets and wires required to complete the design.

Exploring the delicacy of the painted gestures in this small piece allowed Hamish to demonstrate the full spectrum of possibilities for scale using his unique process and visual language.

Many individual hand painted wax 'gestures' were made and a selection chosen on the basis of the expressiveness of the textural qualities. These were assembled into a single flat collaged sheet and manipulated into 3 a dimensional shape over a former before being cast in metal using Hamish's yellow gold alloy.

Medium:

18ct Yellow Gold

Size:

2 x 7 x 7cm

Hamish Thomas Dobbie

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Royal College of Art

Hamish Thomas Dobbie

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Burberry Design Scholarship

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Royal College of Art