Hush b. 1973 Hush was born in Newcastle, England, where he later attended Newcastle School of Art and Design. He later went on to travel and live in other parts of Europe, Asia, and the US. During his time in Japan(where he worked briefly as a toy designer), he became interested in the female figure and how it was represented in Japanese culture, as well as sexuality, the adoption of western fashions, and the juxtaposition of traditional fabrics and patterns and European clothing. Hush moved back to Newcastle, which is where he currently works. His pieces often use traditional figures, such as the geisha, and mix various techniques through a process of layering. Many of his pieces layer realistic, soft portraits with bright, layered graffiti to create complex patterns and interesting forms using contrasting colors. For most of his pieces, he uses silk screens, ink, and aerosol paints. These pieces are often done on black, white, or silver backdrops in order to create contrast with the brightly colored graffiti which often is created as street art, but he does similar pieces in his studio as well and the layering of graffiti often occurs over the course of several months. Most of his artworks are sold or displayed as prints. Retroversion 2017. This piece feature the portrait of a geisha and involves layering of black and gold spray paint against a grey and silver background, with its own faded layers. The only color other than the gold spray paint is in the red lips of the geisha. Sirens 2012. This is one of Hush's earlier pieces and features three women in dresses of layered spray paints, mostly black, red, and blue, against a white and gray backdrop with faded drips and graffiti. There is quite a bit of dynamism in this piece as well. Duality 2018. This is one of the newest pieces that Hush is selling prints of and it focusses on two women in pattered clothing. The patterns in this piece do not really resemble graffiti and the background is similar to that of Retroversion with soft gray patterns. I had not heard much about Hush or his work until very recently when I saw a print of one of his pieces for sale and liked his style and wanted to learn more about it. I love the techniques he uses for creating complex layers and would like to learn more about this type of layering, specifically as I might want to work more with spray paints in the future or at least with this type of mixed media. I love the contrast that he is able to create in his work and how well he is able to blend the two styles and I hope to be able to find more of his work in the future. 2/26 (1-3) Not to much was actually accomplished, but I was able to get still life set up into a good composition and then was able to sketch it out and erase it so I could start the underpainting. I definitely pressed down to hard with the vine charcoal and it didn't end up erasing well and is still pretty dark, so hopefully I can get a bit more of it off later and it'll be fine.
3/2-3/4 (4-6) Monday: I was able to block in a lot of the shadows and it feels like a good start so far. The charcoal is not really going away, but its at least starting to blend in with the rest of the drawing so thats a start. Wednesday: I actually got a lot done and was able to block in more of the shadows and start to darken the painting up. I also was able to start to work on the highlights. I still have a long way to go, but I've made good progress so far in blocking things in. 3/9-3/11 (7-9) Monday: The background was way to light so I started to darken that up a lot and I think that I was able to get a lot done in this regard. I also worked on adjusting the highlights as well because they were not bright enough and needed to be adjusted. Wednesday: I really ended up darkening the background a bit more and working on the candle and adding detail to the glass and box. The candle is definitely looking much better and so far I'm happy with how the detail is looking, but its really hard to see on the box and will need to be adjusted as I continue to work in order to be seen, but I got a lot done so I'm feeling pretty good. |
Avarice StankiewiczHi, I'm Avarice, though I mostly go by Kace, I'm an art 5 student at Maggie Walker Governor's school and page is just a space for some reflection, research and progress photos for my work. Archives
May 2022
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