Little Whistler

Since 1992, the English painter Gary Hume has been producing mainly figurative work that embraces a whole range of subjects. Hume mainly uses photos from the mass media as a source of inspiration, but his work can also be based on famous paintings from art history and religious and symbolic religious images. Through this surprisingly varied number of motifs, Hume explores the entire spectrum of emotions from surprise and joy to melancholy and loss. Conventional ideas of beauty are set against a darker, more questioning approach to the world. Familiar forms are so fragmented at times that they come close to abstraction. The patterns are represented in a greatly simplified manner, in unusual, mostly bright colours. Hume works on large aluminium sheets. First of all, he draws the contours of the picture with silicone paste, squeezed straight from the tube, and then pours decorating paint between the lines. The gloss paint forms a smooth, colourful layer on the hard surface, lending a decorative air even to grim or emotional subjects.