Welcome to my author site. Here you’ll find my debut book, Cowbells on the Kill Floor, alongside the art and influences that shaped it. Thank you for visiting.
I began as an illustrator before moving into oil painting, with exhibitions in London including Muse at Harrods (2011) and Out of Work Angels in Mayfair (2015).
For over twenty-five years my wife, Gail, has been my model and muse—and the one who opened my eyes to veganism.
She said something I couldnʼt argue with: her life was no more important than a sparrowʼs. I said mine was. Gail asked why. What followed was a tumble of fallacies—intelligence, history, tools, the usual myths. And then, silence. Because there was nothing to say.
That moment changed everything.
When Gail showed me a video of what happens on a dairy farm—that was it. I turned vegan the same day.
“Look through an animal’s eyes. There lies your humanity.” I coined that phrase not long after, and wish Iʼd known it sooner.
Some time later, Gail had another brilliant idea: “Why donʼt you write a book?” One of the many questions Iʼd never asked myself. But thatʼs the gift of someone who sees your full potential when you do not. Identity found more space to breathe; expression had another outlet. Why didnʼt I think of that?
Many of us carry odd ideas about who we are. Weʼre given roles early—within families, social circles—and often keep them long after theyʼve stopped fitting. When we finally grow past them, it can unsettle the old order that wants to stay the same.
What we need at such times is a fresh pair of knowing eyes to remind us thereʼs more—there always was. So press on. The world expands right away.
Iʼd written before, contributing to exhibition catalogues. Writing always drew me in. I saw it as another art form, another way to reach people; one that kept asking who I was, and confirming why Iʼd long believed that was never fixed.
Now, with my debut book Cowbells on the Kill Floor, I write with the same aim as I paint: to uncover what we ignore.
“Urgent, informed, and morally clear. Blakely challenges us to face what we’ve been taught to ignore—with a voice that speaks to our need for compassion, coherence, and change.” — Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., author of The Emotional Lives of Animals
Join the conversation. Make a difference.
The Message
This book pushes beyond the usual vegan commentary.
Cowbells on the Kill Floor dismantles the myths that sustain animal exploitation and challenges the cultural habits that normalise harm. From the comforting fantasy of “humane slaughter” to the marketing of “sustainable meat,” Hamish Blakely exposes the contradictions that underpin one of the most destructive legacies of human history.
This book does not simply defend veganism — it obliterates the ideology that resists it. Blending philosophy, science, and lived experience, Blakely argues that ending animal exploitation is not a marginal concern but a central ethical task, one bound up with justice, sustainability, and the future our children will inherit.
With intellectual clarity and moral urgency, Cowbells on the Kill Floor shows how denial, domination, and inherited myths have shaped our world — and how they can be undone. It offers no illusions of comfort, but it does offer hope: that a more honest relationship with animals, and with ourselves, can build a different world, one that no child will ever have to justify.
