GARY HUME
Kunsthaus-Bregenz.at
January 24 thru March 21, 2004

fig.: Gary Hume
Rome V, 1993
Pastel on paper
147 x 97 cm
Gael Boglione
Photo:Stephen White

When asked about his preferred painting motifs, Gary Hume once answered that he painted “flora, fauna, and portrait.” Hume trawls the collective hackneyed pool of everyday images – whether they be icons of the pop and fashion world, e.g. “Michael,” 2001 (Michael Jackson), and “Kate,” 1996 (Kate Moss), or taken from our art historical heritage, e.g. in “After Vermeer,” 1995, or from the fairytale world of childhood, e.g. “Bird on a Branch,” 1998, and “Bear,” 1994 – and resuscitates these into new, valid, modern-day versions of those images. He finds and invents new images of broken, threatened beauty, with lines and colored fields that clash with but at the same time enhance each other and with idiosyncratic color blends and combinations full of harmony and tension. next>>>