I'm interested in the
psychology, the kind of underlying
feeling that a painting has
My name is Hurvin Anderson
and I'm a painter
I paint landscapes and interiors
in its kind of simplest form
I don't have a strict process
I think there are parameters
and, essentially using photographs
as a starting point
as a way, a way in
to start thinking about
painting
And there is part of me that's
a little bit restless
in terms of painting, and
quite likes the experimentation
the use of materials
building up
a painting
from different sheets of paper
and then putting them together
I like to leave things
and then come back to them
So you get a better idea of how things
are working
Photographs, they're interesting
It's a love-hate relationship
maybe still in my mind
or maybe in the audience's mind
the photograph is
you're cheating somehow
It's a shortcut, you should be
out there in the landscape
But at the same, I'm not
sure, I'd be making the same kind of images
if I was out in the landscape
The idea came from
this photograph I had in Handsworth Park
of friends playing football
and this ball had gone into a pond
and the photograph
had two meanings
for me, it was this personal
rare moment
When it became a painting
it became about something else
It became about these kids
adrift on this, what
seemed to be an island
So it was just this question
about belonging, in a way
You know, I think about
the paintings as
sites where Black people occupy
My parents are from Jamaica
I was born in Britain
I guess it informs a lot of what I do
I'm trying to
question what it brings up
At the same time I'm kind of interested
in painting and ideas within painting
I will take a photograph like that
and pull things in and take things out
I literally painted a section out of here
and then a section out of here and
just played with the form
We went to Sri Lanka
and this was a view from
the hotel we were staying
What I do is, it's about questioning
my history, my place
These are landscapes
that have no real
connection to the Caribbean
Whereas these things were
taken in Jamaica
I have more connection to them
I feel like I have a little bit more relationship
to a landscape that I don't know
than the British landscape, in a way
I'm asking myself, why?
The only way to question that is
is to paint something
that's out of my context
It's getting to know the land
or being part of the land seems
to be part of the way you belong
to a place, or understand a place