Hurrel makes art that engages with specific environments and contexts. It is a relational practice that takes into account the wider ecology of people and place.
He works across a range of media such as video, sound, sculpture, light, text, digital, photography and writing.
He unearths stories and weaves together material to create new narratives. These new narratives become alternative stories for a place, and alternative ‘markers’ within it – whether that is a film, a sculpture, a publication, or another art form. He has undertaken significant collaborations with other professionals including social scientists, marine ecologists, architects, engineers, and computer-programmers. Hurrel has exhibited and produced site-specific work in the UK and abroad and has several permanent public artworks in the UK, and Tasmania, Australia.
In recent years Hurrel has created work in relation to NHS Health Centres, resulting in several permanently sited public artworks and a role as Lead Artist/Curator/Planner over many years.
Many of his recent independent works have responded to various marine environments. This includes the act of making journeys, the people he meets, and the experience of being located within those environments. This has included environments such as a marine-mammal research station, a Scottish island fishing community, coastal towns, a river in Mexico and a fishing community in Sri Lanka.
An ongoing online project is his narrative-led piece, titled Fluid States: Rehearsal for a Crisis, based on a particular journey the artist made along the Usumacinta River in Mexico which was a group expedition of artists, social scientists and community activists that involved paddling down the river and camping along it for three weeks. In this work, fact and fiction become interwoven, as well as the act of making a journey and telling a story.