The walking art of Hamish Fulton makes up the latest exhibition at the Turner Contemporary. Chris Price went for a stroll with the Kent-based, self-proclaimed “walking artist.”

Hamish Fulton is under no illusions when it comes to what many critics and the public think about his walking art.

“People think it is all a bit nuts,” he said sitting in his studio at his Canterbury home.

The studios of most internationally renowned artists are usually packed to the rafters but not Hamish’s. It’s almost empty because Hamish – who climbed Mount Everest in 2009 – does not do his work inside, as anyone who happened to be strolling along the Margate seafront on March 3, 2010, will know.

The artist arranged for more than 200 people to complete seven circuits of Margate’s Marine Bathing Pool, all walking a metre apart and in silence. The walk was one of three commissioned by the Turner Contemporary for its latest exhibition, Hamish Fulton: Walk, which opens this week. Hamish chuckled as he remembered the walk on that grey day in Margate.

“They call it a bathing pool but I think maybe a few people have fallen in it once or twice at 2am,” he said. “The idea was the pool has a shape perfect for walking on. I didn’t need to build anything. The four walls were already in existence. I had a feeling that if we had a sufficient number of people walking slowly round there equidistant and not talking it would be very unusual. That was what happened and I really enjoyed it.”

The Margate walk was the second walk Hamish had orgainsed, the first was around the city walls of Canterbury in January 2009 and the third in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in November 2010. The new exhibition at the Turner is made up of works taken from these three walks, something Hamish accepts your average art punter may find a little odd.

“Making art about walking is quite an uphill battle,” said Hamish, 65. “Some people think contemporary art is without style and a waste of money but they don’t realise it is contemporary and not representational art.

“Sometimes, where I live, people will say, 'Have you been off on one of your strolls again?’. What they don’t realise is you have to get the funding to do it. People think I have inherited a million pounds. But I have to make it work.”

Although the exhibition is not a retrospective, the Turner Contemporary will house works by Hamish made from 1967 to 2011, two of which were made while Hamish was a student. He subsequently taught art for a few months at Maidstone College of Art but quit because he wanted to become an artist full time.

“I appreciated the job because it was an income but I couldn’t survive emotionally without being an artist,” he added.

“At the age of 24, I took this giant step of rejecting employment. No one in their right mind would want to be a walking artist but I believe walking has become more important as a connecting point.

“If you are always painting inside a studio you are not directly involved with nature itself. Now that nature is being fundamentally destroyed by humanity, walking is a way of keeping in contact with it.”

This is Hamish’s first solo exhibition in the UK since his one at the Tate Britain in London in 2002. Unique to this exhibition, Hamish has tailored two of his artworks to cover almost the entire height of the Turner Contemporary, as the gallery has very high walls.

“If you are a studio artist it doesn’t matter which gallery you are in because your painting is always the same size, but for Margate I have attempted work for the wall height. Often people see art as sculpture or painting on a canvas but the way I work means.

“I can also attempt to fill the architecture, ” he added.

Climbing Mount Everest changed my life

In 2009, between his Canterbury and Margate walks for his Turner Contemporary exhibition, Hamish climbed to the summit of Mount Everest. His piece, pictured, was taken from the ascent. He became the oldest man in Britain to have reached the top but he only held the record for one day as it was broken by the adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

“I had the idea to test myself and to compare my sea-level group work with a high-altitude climb,” said Hamish.

“It was fantastic and it changed my life. I wanted to get to the true summit, rather than just the south summit and I did it with the helped of skilled sherpas.

“The weather at the top was fantastic. There was no wind and it was clear visually. I could look out onto the plateau of Tibet. It was completely incredible.

“My mind is now, in some way, protected by having reached the summit of Everest. I am surviving as a walking artist and most people don’t know about my work or don’t think being a walking artist is being a proper artist. Yet my memory of being at the top of Everest has given me a sense of protection.”

Words identify work

Hamish has a strong relationship with text in his artwork, much like Tracey Emin who is hosting the next major contemporary exhibition at the Turner in May.

Hamish said: “I’m always writing. I write notes every single day. The thing with words is they can give you facts very rapidly. If you see a painting today of the Alps by someone, it is just another set of mountains until you find out what it is.

“When you have the writing, it puts it in the location. It’s minor information but it makes it clear. Did the person drive there? Did they have a meal? You don’t know anything but words identify the work itself.”

Hamish Fulton: Walk runs at the Turner Contemporary in Margate from Tuesday, January 17, to Monday, May 7. Admission free. Call 01843 233000.