Amanda Hall
Alchemy
The Alchemy Series formed part of the work I created for my 2023 degree show. Increasingly concerned with the impact of mass consumerism on the environment, I wanted to explore the value we attach to everyday objects and the things we choose to discard.
The title The Alchemy Series reflects the process of transformation. Like the alchemist's ambition to turn ordinary materials into something precious, the work considers how acts of collecting, making, and reimagining can reveal new meanings within objects that might otherwise remain unseen.
Alchemy II
During a holiday in Italy, I found a well-used tea strainer among a collection of discarded domestic objects. Knowing nothing of its history or why it had been abandoned, I was intrigued, in a country renowned for its coffee culture rather than tea, it seemed strangely out of place.
By stitching the tea strainer with metallic gold thread, I transformed an overlooked object into something to be looked at again, questioning how we assign value to the everyday and what we choose to keep or discard.
The series of works continued with the transformation of other domestic items.
Alchemy III in Coquette Cornucopia, 2025
Alchemy I
Alchemy I was inspired by the aftermath of a fire. Once extinguished, it left beautiful, compelling patterns of soot across the walls and kitchen cupboards, revealing an unexpected beauty within destruction.
Alchemy I in Inside the Box, 2025
In response, I transformed three ordinary metal splatter guards by embellishing them with beads that echo the intricate patterns created by the soot.