You look at the picture, and you look at the surface, then you look at the reflection in the surface behind you, then you look at yourself.
- Gary Hume
Gary Hume was born in Kent in 1962 and graduated from Goldsmiths College, London in 1988. While studying, he began gaining notoriety as part of the Young British Artists (or YBAs), a loosely associated generation of British artists who came to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seminal YBA shows featuring Hume’s work included Freeze. Part II (1988) (curated by contemporary Damien Hirst) and, later, the iconic group shows Brilliant! (1995-96) and Sensation (1997).
Hume first received critical acclaim with a body of work known as the ‘door’ paintings. These are minimal and abstract works depicting swing doors from hospitals and other public spaces, rendered in high gloss paint with insistently reflective surfaces. This abstract formalism developed later in the early 1990s into a more fluid and lyrical way of painting. Whilst retaining the surface quality and the flat economic language, Hume’s more recent work has broadened his subject matter to incorporate images from nature and popular culture, making portraits of celebrity figures such as Tony Blackburn, Kate Moss, and Patsy Kensit.
In 1996, shortly after gaining prominence as part of the YBA generation, Hume was selected to represent Britain at the São Paulo Biennale – that same year, he was also nominated for the Turner Prize. The following year, 1997, his career was further bolstered when he was awarded the Jerwood Painting Prize by the Jerwood Foundation, London. In 1998, Hume was commissioned to produce his ‘bird point’ paintings for the entrance hall at the Sadlers Wells Opera House, London. These are large-scale highly abstract works consisting of hard-edged facets of colour that lock together. For the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale the following year, he produced the ‘Water Paintings’ that explore the complex relationship between drawing and painting. These similarly large-scale works consist of multiple line drawings of nudes superimposed over one another punctuated by flat areas of colour.
Hume is recognised internationally and has exhibited extensively around the world. He has had solo exhibitions at the Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (1996), the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (1999), the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1999), Fundacao La Caixa, Barcelona (2000), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2003) and the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004).