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When Ant Hamlyn returned to Moosey with Memento Mori, he didn’t simply revisit the still-life tradition — he dissected it, softened it, stitched it shut, and held it trembling behind acrylic. Presented over just four days, the exhibition felt like a performance in duration as much as in form, a fleeting encounter with objects that could no longer perform their roles. Champagne bottles that couldn’t be uncorked, chandeliers that would never glow, cured meats immortalised in fabric, each piece suspended somewhere between desire and decay.
Hamlyn’s hand-sewn sculptures borrow the visual cues of vanitas painting but twist them into something quietly uncanny. By flattening and preserving everyday items, he freezes the rituals of living at the moment just before they slip away. Domestic scenes become relics; indulgences become symbols; playfulness sits uneasily beside melancholy. In this theatre of soft objects, time seems to hesitate.
I sat down with Hamlyn shortly after the show to talk about the impulse behind this new body of work, the instinct to preserve, the seduction of stillness, and what it means to make art that remembers we are temporary.
Hi Ant, it’s always a pleasure to sit down with you! The last time we talked it was about your collaboration with Joyride Design and Case Studyo. This time I’ll be focusing on your most recent solo show, as well as your new body of work. So… let’s jump right into it! “Memento Mori” revisits the age-old reminder that “we must die.” What’s the story behind that title?
Ant: Yes! And you mate, always so good to chat. “Memento Mori” is a Latin phrase relating to mortality. It was prominent in 17th-century still life, mainly from the Vanitas period. The term basically alludes to the reminder of the end of things and the pointless pursuit of pleasures — that all things are temporary and will eventually pass. Sounds bleak, I know… but for me, this is not a bleak prediction or a morbid source of inspiration. For me memento mori talks about the celebration of small moments and the joy in things that will pass — it talks about nostalgia, memory, and impermanence.
Yes, it discusses the end of things, but I think this can be used as a positive: slowing down, checking in with your immediate reality and past experiences, and living in the moment in a world where we are consistently on the pursuit of more. So it felt relevant to bring the idea of Memento Mori into a contemporary lens.
There’s a quiet melancholy in preserving these moments, almost like taxidermy of desire. Do you see your sculptures as a form of protection or a kind of gentle mourning?
Ant: Taxidermy of desire is great. I like that. Yeah, I think both really. Protection in the way that we protect our memories and want to preserve things in time — a bit like a photograph. I like to think sometimes of the works as still images in, as you say, a fast-moving world — something that has just frozen and remained at its most desirable or “perfect.”
And with that, I like the idea that perfect doesn’t exist. The persistent attempt of creating order in a chaotic world is a never-ending loop. So by making these works almost seem overly staged and “perfected,” it’s my way of talking about how memories are always a little bit skewed from reality. I think in a way that’s why they are also a gentle mourning, because they are talking about a time or a moment that you’ll never reach again.
The show lasted only four days, mirroring the transience it speaks about. Was that ephemerality intentional from the start, or did it emerge as part of the concept?
Ant: It emerged as part of the concept of the show. As the works talk about moments in time, frozen memories, and the conversation between permanence and impermanence, it seemed right to do a short-durational show. If it was missed, it was missed. I didn’t want the works to sit in the gallery for weeks. I wanted to keep it fresh, unexpected, and exciting, and I thought that by doing the show over four days that would be the best way to make it more of a happening than a traditional exhibition.
You use fabric and sewing to create trompe l’oeil sculptures — soft imitations of hard or perishable things. How does the act of sewing connect emotionally or conceptually with the idea of time and care?
Ant: I taught myself to sew about six years ago. I find it the most meditative practice. It’s just a really nice connection between myself and the act of making — I imagine similar to how a painter feels when they put paint to canvas. It occupies the space between idea and reality in a way that feels both reflective and optimistic.
All of my works take a very long time to make, and each piece becomes a real labour of love. I think it’s a very special, almost sacred thing to take the time to make something and bring it to life. In a busy and distracting world, for me the act of making calms my mind and allows me to slow down, reflect, and tune in to something on a different level to the daily surge of motion.
Each object seems to oscillate between humor and poignancy — a fast-food burger rendered like an heirloom, a chandelier sewn like a toy. How do you strike that balance between irony and tenderness?
Ant: I think that balance comes from looking at things with equal parts curiosity and care. I’m drawn to objects that already carry a bit of contradiction — something cheap or disposable that still holds emotional weight, or something expensive and luxurious that can be unnecessary.
When I render a burger, a sink, or a squashed flower as if it were an heirloom, or stitch a chandelier or bottle of wine like a child’s toy, I’m not trying to mock them. I’m trying to give them a kind of skewed attention — bringing them into a place where they can be seen as delicate snapshots of human time as opposed to banal moments.
The irony comes from the mismatch — the precious treatment of something mundane — but the tenderness comes from the labour, from the act of slowing down and noticing. I like that tension, when you’re not sure whether to laugh or to ache a little. I think that’s where the most human feelings live — in that blur between humor and sincerity, or delight and melancholy.
What’s your relationship to the illusion itself? Are you trying to fool the eye, or invite viewers to notice the beauty in being “almost real”?
Ant: I’m not really interested in fooling the eye, I don’t think. I’m more interested in that moment when the illusion almost convinces you but not quite. I make everything from memory and rarely use any visual references to replicate, so I think this is what always gives the work a slight surrealism and takes it away from the direct replica.
The more you look, the more the viewer becomes aware of its edges and its artifice — that’s where I think the beauty lies, in that space between belief, the surreal, and logic. For me, the illusion isn’t a trick — it’s a way of slowing down looking.
I take a lot of influence from Victorian stagecraft magic, particularly the order and performance of theatre illusions. When something is almost real, you start to notice how perception works — how much of what we see is shaped by desire, memory, or habit. I like when the viewer feels that slight hesitation, that flicker between recognition and doubt. Our own experiences and biases confirm our individual viewing experiences anyway, so I just make things the way I see them and invite the viewer in.
Classical still lifes often moralized about excess, but your work feels more compassionate — even amused by it. Do you think contemporary art can still moralize, or should it simply observe?
Ant: I think the experience of art, music, film, theatre — it’s deeply personal. For me as a contributor, it’s important to comment and reflect but not to tell anyone how to live. I think it’s a very personal thing to be let into someone else’s world through their craft. When we enter this space, we are transported completely into an alternate reality of time, place, narrative, and emotion.
Who that space has been created by is usually apparent — who it is created for will always be fascinating, I think. Contemporary art can moralize in a subtle way, but I see it more as an opportunity to observe the world through symbolism and reflect with curiosity as opposed to setting moral rules.
The exhibition clearly nods to the Vanitas tradition — skulls, timepieces, indulgence. How do you see your dialogue with that lineage, and what’s your 21st-century take on “vanity”?
Ant: Great question. Within my work, my sense of vanity isn’t about self-obsession so much as it is about longing. It’s the impulse to hold something still, to make it last just a little longer in a time where everything is constantly refreshed and replaced. Vanity can be a kind of love of what will soon disappear.
At the same time, on a wider societal level, contemporary vanity could manifest as ignorance — a kind of blindness and lack of empathy toward the world beyond our immediate concerns.
Do you see your practice as documenting your own life in some way — like sewing personal mementos — or more as a reflection of collective habits and desires?
Ant: This show in particular — I wanted to take elements from my own life and try to merge them with traditional still-life composition, references, and nuances. Essentially: make what I know. So as I say, a number of the works are autobiographical.
For example, my first job was a pot-wash in Northampton where I grew up. My parents didn’t fly, so I was lucky to do so many UK seaside holidays and have gingham-clad fry-ups in beach cafés. Whoever learnt to drive first growing up did the Maccy’s run. The drinks cabinet is a direct replica of the one me and my fiancée have in our house — and we used to live above a whiskey bar in Liverpool. I’ve always wanted a real chandelier, and our house is full of houseplants and cactuses.
Although semi-autobiographical, these aspects of the show were not chosen at random, as each work highlights a different conceptual idea surrounding traditional vs. contemporary still life — paying reference to ritual, luxury, trompe l’oeil, materiality, and vanitas.
Alright Ant, last question. If Memento Mori could whisper a single sentence to the viewer before they leave, what would it say?
Ant: Pint of Guinness please.