Penny Hamblin spent the early part of her life in Hong Kong, returning to live in Brighton in her teens.  She remained in Brighton to do her foundation at Brighton Art College, transferring to London to complete her degree and MA at Camberwell College of Art.  She now works and lives in South London.

Summers spent under the huge skies of Cornwall fuelled her obsession with the elements of sky and sea and a focus on life as seen through the eyes of the viewer – a view that extends beyond the picture plane towards the launching point of a distant horizon.

Her paintings are constructed by building up thin layers of oil paint on canvas so that the finished effect is a journey into what lies beneath.  As in nature, each gaze reveals something different.

Penny’s prints are also built up in layers.  Her photographic-based work hones in on the imprint of humans on historic, often decaying, buildings.  The series “Absence/Presence” began with an appointment made to photograph the decaying structure of the West Pier in Brighton.  Here was a structure that could be used as a metaphor for the idea that a space can hold within its presence a past and a history: a space once vibrant and occupied but now decaying, claustrophobic.  The shadowed interiors, exemplified by peeling paint and broken windows, contrast with the open spaces beyond.  These spaces are both literal and metaphorical: the sea stretches off into the distance and the past is the space occupied by a series of recollections.
            … within two weeks the Pier was closed to the public
            … a year later it had burnt down and returned to the sea

Following the theme of “Absence/Presence”, Penny continued her investigation into trapping a moment in time by photographing within the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral, also a metaphor for the spatial captivation of the past in the present.  In contrast to the West Pier, the spaces within this historical structure are solid, albeit weathered by time and a continuing human presence.  It resonates in its history and the imprints of its past.