Bidding for our Winter Auction is now open until 23rd November! We sat down with Hurvin Anderson, whose artwork is included in Katherine Kittoe's curated selection, to discuss the postcard he donated and the experiences that inspire his artwork.
Bid on Hurvin's Artwork
What is the context behind your postcard?
The Avenue is based on a found photograph. I can’t remember the exact origin of the image but it was amongst a collection of photographs and material I keep in the studio. I was drawn to the ambiguity of the source image. There is an abstract quality to the trees and a softening of the focus that made me reinterpret the formality of the quite generic front garden scene to create something a little more intriguing. For me, it morphed into a kind of forest or copse but it is hard to totally decipher. I enjoy this in painting, the introduction of questions, of not knowing.
How does it fit within your current practice?
I am often driven to paint landscapes from memory or found photographs, recently returning to scenes exploring the verdant foliage of the Caribbean while also trying to expose or augment them with a sense of displacement or nostalgia. I like to observe, recreate and edit much in the same way as memory works. I’m interested in what it means to belong to a landscape. I like how a sense of time and place can sometimes be allusive, that the literal interpretation lies somewhere in the hinterland between figuration and abstraction.
Could you describe a meaningful memory that you have shared through a painting or series?
What initially springs to mind is my Peter’s series of paintings that I created after visiting an attic barbershop with my dad. It was years ago now but everything about the set up stayed with me and I guess it was poignant as there was the bond there between father and son; the legacy of ritual in a way. But beyond that, for me it became an almost obsessive project. There was a lot of playing with conventions of composition and perspective until the figuration was totally replaced by abstraction and the cosy attic set-up reduced to the turquoise geometric forms of the walls and ceiling.
