Hume's use of common household paints and his combinations of colors are at once unique and disconcerting. The paintings might resemble something wallpapery, when covered with clusters of flowery images, or some kind of optical illusion, when he uses large color...
[more]Hume's use of common household paints and his combinations of colors are at once unique and disconcerting. The paintings might resemble something wallpapery, when covered with clusters of flowery images, or some kind of optical illusion, when he uses large color blocks to represent figures in silhouette. The titles only give you some clue to the meaning, so you experience delight once you realize what the subject matter is.
His work "Four Feet in the Garden" (1995) resembles a cross between a Rorschach test and the famous image of either a young woman in a large feathered hat or an old hag, depending on what you focus on first. Cornflower blue legs and feet slice through a black background: because of the immediate tension between the colors, the relatively banal subject matter takes a while to register.
In another work, "Falling" (1995), Hume tends towards abstraction, again using hues that wouldn't appear on a color wheel (and still, as usual, they work). The very simple rendition of a pair of clasped hands -- possibly of someone praying or lost in thought -- is executed with graceful poise and elegance. The subtle shading gives just enough information to keep the image from devolving into an amorphous blob.
Jump ahead a few years, examine Hume's "Water Paintings" of multiple superimposed nudes, and it's difficult to believe this is the same artist. The compelling use of color is still there, but the ultrasimple use of line, rather than the more blocky use of color fields, is completely the opposite of "Four Feet." He seems to have etched right through the surface color to create the thin, white lines that express his subject. In many cases, Hume says, he's about exploring "transitional space: connections between spaces but not the spaces themselves."
These colorful paintings of body parts and pop images constitute the second phase of Hume's work. Phase one, which lasted until 1993, consisted of paintings made to resemble doors -- like the swinging doors found in hospitals. The portals were rendered in high-gloss enamel on panels of aluminum, the same material he uses in phase two. As he's moved from conceptual art to figurative art, Hume has maintained certain purist values, always instilling his paintings with a sheer, surface beauty that asks questions about the nature of the decorative.
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