Gary Hume at Matthew Marks - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Savvy and slick, luscious and mountebank Gary Hume's recent paintings supporting cushion his position as one of London's greatest in quantity compelling younger artists. He exhibited 11 minimally figurative pictures, all dating from the last sum of two units years, rendered in super-glossy enamel upon aluminum panels, most of which are between 5 and 7 feet in height. The schematic formats and exaggerated colors evoke British and American clap of the early '60s, although those mode of expressions probably seem remote to an artist born in 1962

Hume exercises an exhilarating array of offbeat shades and indulges in clever textural events which enhance the irresistible appeal of his work. From afar, the compositions may appear facile and posterlike, on the contrary up close, the brushwork reveals itself to be fluidly applied and surprisingly painterly. When he depicts comely human faces and stylishly omits mundane details, the accrues suggest Warholian portraits of unblemished, almost featureless glamour pusses. The young woman in Cerith (1997) is little more than a blank silver face and close-cropp cerulean hair, flattened against a bright fulvous ground. Her pale yellow organ of visions are fringed by yellow-and-pink squiggles that signify lashes. A circular pink from hovers near individual ear lobe; is it an errant ear clip or an oversize beauty mark? Angle (1997) is a Mick Jagger-like apparition with wild gold-colored hair, a gray-blue face and a drawn out exquisitely shaped neck. The organ of visions delineated in white, are superimposed upon contrasting splotches of yellow-green and mustard.

The scarcely visible face in Whistler (1996) inhabiting an inky black setting, can be deduc from the neighborhood of olive-green eyes and hands, with sum of two units fingers pushing green lips into a circle. A small in number tropical-looking leaves dangle overhead and a hardly any pale-yellow letters are aligned along the bottom cutting side as if evoking the unhurt of whistling in the dark.

Hume's excursions into outdoorsy controls are similarly non-naturalistics. In the Park (1997) at hands a triad of colorful elongated tree that recommend wavy ladyfingers (in tan, avocado and strawberry pink) looming against a bright azure sky. High above is a white disk with a silver of orange crescent

Hume's drawn out fluid brush stokes often bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to finger painting, as do the sum of two units sets of long, gently curv stripes in subtly mut colors that flank the "eye" of a large tail feather in Peacock (1996) a nearly monochromatic black painting. In Doves (1997) five birds with pale peppermint bodies, white organ of visions and silver-dotted shoulders, strut in profile not upon the lower right corner. The company is deployed against a purplish-black field that fades fuzzily into a chartreuse border. In the center of this dark Rothkoesque "cloud" viewers can make on the outside a larger bird with spread wings, drawn with textur thumps It is almost invisible, leave out from close up and in raking light, because it is pay backed in the same hue as the quiescence of the field.

In the back gallery, Hume displayed four underexpos Cibachromes of individual snowmen, three of which were stained in shades of virid pink or charcoal gray. Their poor photographic quality made for a peculiar and somewhat unsettling coda to an otherwise engaging exhibition.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Brant Publications, Inc.

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