Barbershop Print

Hurvin Anderson combines both abstraction and representation in his work, which frequently explores the settings of barbershops. Here, the chairs, hair clippers, and light fixtures are composed of simplified shapes, and objects in the background are reduced beyond the point of recognition. The lined patterns and muted blue and black colors blend together, creating the effect of an old photograph. Through such visual devices, the artist introduces a particular place to the viewer while also suggesting a psychologically complicated memory of it.

The barbershop serves as a reimagining of the artist’s personal history as a second-generation Jamaican visiting barbershops with his father. It also alludes to the many foreigners who immigrated to the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s. Without the means to rent commercial spaces, Black immigrants often ran businesses out of their homes, which became important social and cultural spaces. As the artist revisits and recreates this space, he reflects on his own childhood memories, ideas of cultural preservation and integration, and feelings of displacement and belonging.