A brush with... Hurvin Anderson

A brush with... Hurvin Anderson

From A brush with... by The Art Newspaper

April 14, 2026 · 48 min · Season 33 · Episode 2

About this episode

Hurvin Anderson discusses his artistic influences and the cultural experiences that shape his work.

Hurvin Anderson talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Anderson was born in Birmingham, UK, in 1965, the youngest of eight siblings, the rest of whom were born in Jamaica. His paintings are a poetic response to place, teeming with personal and cultural resonance. He transforms photographs from his own archive as well as found images into atmospheric worlds of paint, in which details of motifs, including figures, objects, interiors and landscapes pull in and out of focus, suggesting the texture of memory. Much of his work evokes scenes and spaces in Britain, where he was born, but also imagery of Jamaica, from where his parents emigrated to the UK, and the Caribbean more widely. He has stated that his paintings often relate to a feeling of—quote—“being in one place while thinking of another”. They are a profoundly subjective response to diasporic lived experience and a sustained and lyrical engagement with paint as simultaneously a tool of representation and of veiling or disturbance. He discusses for the first time his latest paintings for the survey of his…

People in this episode

Host: Ben Luke

Guest: Hurvin Anderson

Topics covered

  • artistic influences
  • cultural experiences
  • diasporic identity
  • painting techniques
  • memory and place

Keywords

  • Hurvin Anderson
  • Ben Luke
  • Tate Britain
  • painting
  • diaspora
  • memory
  • art influences
  • photography

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Tate Britain

Places: Birmingham, UK, Jamaica, Caribbean

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