Didier Hamey was born and raised in Dunkirk and now lives and works in Saou in the Drôme, France. The moment of madness that seizes his city during ‘Carnival’ is particularly influential to the artist's practice. Hamey claims that the sacred beings present in his work haunt our daily lives, in everything that seems present. Inspired by the world of Japanese Yokai, they embody spirits, ghosts, familiar demons or fabulous animals in a state of metamorphosis. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes humorous, equipped with wings or fins, his beings circulate and spring from totemic forms. In velvety black, they embody a place of contemplation, hiding place or shelter.

Hamey has exhibited his work internationally and it appears in many private and public collections including the National Contemporary Art Fund, the National Library, and the Gravelines Engraving Museum. He was the recipient of a retrospective exhibition of his engraved work at the Musée de l’Estampe de Gravelines and a residency at the Casa de Velasquez in Madrid.