Having originally trained as a graphic designer and illustrator at Newcastle School of Art and Design, Hush’s art practice has taken him throughout Asia, Europe and the USA, while simultaneously developing his prominence as a contemporary artist. His immersion in a diversity of cultures has informed his work largely recognized for its portrayal of the amaranthine of the female form while infusing cross-cultural influences and variant genres within contemporary art. A distinguishing facet of Hush’s work is the complexity of his technique that combines various street approaches with traditional art practices. Through the use of opposing themes and aesthetics, the artist presents contemporary depictions of traditional portrait and figurative imagery.
Absorbing cultural and visual influences from his extensive travels, Hush found a striking connection to the mark making, tagging and graffiti he had encountered along the way. He observed each ephemeral mark as evidence of another’s action or creative expression, despite its gradual degradation over time. He found the remnants of previous marks left on the ever-changing street surfaces to be progressive where accidental layering often evolved into something beautiful. Hush seeks to capture the beauty that years of decayed tagging can create and magnify the value of these actions through his contemporary paintings. The artist’s canvases mimic city walls once adorned with wheat pasted images, tags and painting that overtime are repeatedly layered upon image after image. The technique for his highly involved mixed-media pieces is an amalgamation of painting, screen printing, spray-painting as well as layering and collaging of graphic novels and old comics. The culmination of the pieces is brought about as the diaphanous layers are strategically torn away to reveal the ultimate vision “letting the canvas and marks take their own path.” The central focus of Hush’s work is images of iconic and pop art renditions of the female form, particularly of the geisha and the anime manga. As the artist manipulates his canvases he finds figurative elements and allows the form to emerge to the surface. It is here that the artist confronts and debates the power, innocence, beauty and cunning of feminine sexuality.
Hush’s latest work deepens his exploration of the resulting emergences brought about by the evanescent quality of street art. Appreciating and identifying the remains of past tags as points of expression, the artist transitions this influence to his work that he refers to as “action painting” or “pure expressionism”. In his new work, Hush remains influenced by the escape from the constraints of traditions, the contrasts between old and new, the past meeting the future and the fusion of Eastern and Western culture.
Hush is an artist living and working in the UK. He has been featured in several publications including Street Knowledge (Harper Collins) and The Street Art Stencil Book (Laurence King Publishing), Huck magazine, Art Monthly and London’s newspaper, The Independent (where he was recognized in their list of the “Top 20 Up and Coming Artists”). In 2010 Hush will release a series of snowboards with Burton and a series of commissions with Mitsibushi Securities Bank in London as well as exhibit with the Portsmouth Museum of Art (NH). He has exhibited internationally with Opus Art (London) and Strychnin Gallery (Berlin) and nationally with SCOPE Art Fair (New York, Miami and Switzerland), The Shooting Gallery (San Francisco) and Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles). Hush’s 2010 sold-out solo show with The Shooting Gallery (White Wall’s sister gallery) in San Francisco. In 2011 Hush will launch his new installation program and exhibition space, onethirty3, in Newcastle, UK.
