HURVIN ANDERSON

Anderson’s vibrant paintings draw on the genres of still-life, landscape and portraiture to explore the way community and identity can be represented. Born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, Anderson’s practice touches upon his Jamaican heritage as well as referencing wider art history. Repeated images such as the interior of barbershops appear throughout his paintings as a place synonymous with enterprise, affirmation and community for many Afro-Caribbean migrants. His work pays homage to this cultural history and explores themes of memory, identity and nationhood.

Painted on canvas and paper, Anderson’s scenes shift between abstract and representational focus. He frequently overlays his paintings with decorative screens and abstract patterns which interfere with the landscapes underneath. These screens can be seen as references to the security grills often found around properties in the Caribbean to mark the threshold between public and private space. They also combine the distinct art historical genres of figurative landscape and modernist abstraction while creating a unique sense of place and identity.