Robert Hamblin

A Johannesburger by birth, Robert Hamblin became a freelance commercial photographer at the age of twenty-one, after six years as a newspaper photographer. Hamblin is a transgendered man who uses his photographic and artistic skills to create narratives of the human state, exploring gender issues and increasing awareness of the need to transform gender relations.

His first exhibition in 1993 was a study of well-known South African women. In 1995 he took a year off from the creative side of things to care for his father who was dying of Aids. His next exhibition, Millennium Man was an examination of the confrontation between men and perceived notions of masculinity and a world that has become more feminised. Questions of gender have informed Robert’s work for several years, and have now become an integral part of his life.

Hamblin has participated in many solo and group shows both in South Africa and abroad. Highlights of his career include winning the 2004 Fellowship Award at the Houston Center for Photography in Houston, Texas, and being chosen as a featured artist at the Klein Karoo Nationale Kunsfees (KKNK) in Outshoorn in 2006. This show, entitled Gender, was a multimedia exhibition that looked at questions of sexual categorisation and notions of femininity and masculinity. In addition to a series of surrealistic photographs, five short films Hair, Body, Brother, Father, and Grandfather – all of which interrogate the spaces between the masculine and the feminine – also formed part of the exhibition. His medium is digital photography, which enables him to create surreal images. He also draws on the world of advertising for inspiration because, he says, ads reflect how we live and how we communicate.