Scott Hunter’s work in Dear Earth at Kirkcaldy Galleries | Photography © Lydia Smith
Scott Hunter
Like many photographers today, Scott Hunter is very aware of the impact traditional chemical photography can have on the environment. Hunter elects to face this directly through the chemical processes captured in his imagery. These large scale scrolled images are taken through a microscope. They capture interactions between silver nitrate and soil.
This interaction is photographed throughout the process of slow evaporation and the spread of tiny particles that occurs when this apparently empty solution encounters a “natural” material. The focus on details in these large images parallels the need to look closer and consider environmental processes which are invisible in the everyday world.
Biography
Scott Hunter is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Kinghorn, Scotland. Working at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and environmental science, his practice explores contamination, ecological restoration, and the material afterlives of industrial and photographic processes. Often collaborating with plants, soil, and chemical residues, Hunter creates image-based installations that foreground the entanglement of landscape, toxicity, and nonhuman agency.
Hunter holds an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Edinburgh College of Art and lectures in photography at the University of Edinburgh and Fife College. Recent projects include Shitsurai XI, KG+, Kyotographie International Photography Festival, Kyoto (2025); Metamorphosis, Saatchi Gallery, London (2024); Darkroom Ecology, Summerhall, Edinburgh (2023); and Genescapes, Research Publication, ASCUS Art & Science, Edinburgh (2023). Hunter has undertaken residencies in Iceland, Sweden, and Italy, and has received support from Creative Scotland, the Hope Scott Trust and VACMA.