Backdrop examines the artist's practice in depth, presenting his paintings alongside previously unpublished sculpture and photography. The publication's pages are covered in sketches, collages, photographs and test painting and printing — all at actual size. This means that many pieces are cropped, or others are layered up upon others. Ink-tracings are reproduced on tracing paper; fluorescent orange spray paint is rendered in fluorescent inks.
Best known for his evocative paintings that engage with charged social histories and shifting notions of cultural identity, Hurvin Anderson's depictions of lush Caribbean landscapes and urban barbershops explore themes of memory and place, and the indelible connection between the two.
Anderson applies paint with deceptive ease, as if eager to capture the scene before it drifts away; figure and ground blend to create compositional spaces where subjects fluidly project forward and recede back into permeable picture planes.
Published on the occassion of Hurvin Anderson: Backdrop, Contemporary Museum of Art St Louis, St Louis MO, 11 September - 27 December 2015.