Background
Gary Hume was born on March 9, 1962, in Tenterden, Kent, England, United Kingdom.
London, United Kingdom
Emblem of Goldsmiths College
London, United Kingdom
Royal Academy of Arts
Gary Hume was born on March 9, 1962, in Tenterden, Kent, England, United Kingdom.
Gary Hume attended Homewood School. He graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1988.
Gary’s early works were a part of two very important Young British Artists exhibitions – The Freeze, a show organized by Damien Hirst in 1988, and East Country Yard, a warehouse exhibition organized by Henry Bond and Sarah Lucas in 1990. Following his first solo show at Karsten Schubert Ltd, London (1989) he rapidly established an international reputation, exhibiting in numerous significant group exhibitions throughout the 1990s.
Gary Hume came to prominence in the early 1990s with his "Door" paintings, a series of life-sized paintings of hospital doors. These minimal, abstract compositions eventually evolved into more fluid, lyrical imagery, often employing found images of celebrities (including Michael Jackson) and animals. In his 2009 paintings of American cheerleaders, entitled "American Tan," Hume explored dualities of desire and repulsion, sexuality and innocence. Exuberantly embracing kitsch, Hume straddles the line between representation and abstraction, painting with high-gloss paints on aluminum panels to create vibrant color contrasts and a flat, Pop-inflected aesthetic.
Francis Bacon
1998Incubus
1991Two Three Leaf Clovers
1994Whistler
1998Snowman
1996Begging For It
1994Tony Blackburn
1994Funny Girl
1998Angel
1998Untitled 03
2006Dolphin Painting No.4
1991Vicious
1994Girl Boy, Boy Girl
1991The Generals
2004Untitled 02
2006Water Painting
1999Jealousy and Passion
1993Bird Point lll
1998Untitled 07
2006Quotations: "The edge is the only thing that matters. I used to think of the areas of color as tectonic plates meeting, so in the paintings it’s like there are these molten plates that would hit each other and dry. I wanted one of those plates to be higher than the other, and I wanted the hit to be more abrupt."
In the early 1990s Gary Hume was a member of the Young British Artists.