05:52:20 – 05:52:21, 2018; plasticine on aluminium board, 210 x 260 cm

Good afternoon everybody and welcome back to another interview. This week it’s short and sharp and direct to the point. His work is outstanding. I mean it, I truly find it absolutely mind-blowing. He doesn’t say much in this interview for this weeks Artist Focus but he doesn’t need. He is incredibly talented and hard working, disciplined in his work as well as consistent too. It’s visually powerful and positively refreshing. This week we focus on the sublime Henry Hudson. His work is a portal to another world.

“Henry Hudson (1982) is a British artist who works across painting, sculpture, ceramics, installation and printing-making. Hudson’s critical practice is expressed through the exploration of various techniques and materials, including ceramics, plasticine, scagliola, oil painting, 3D printing, wax, sand and textiles. The work extends into the digital realm using the iPad, scanners and uv printers that inform his contemporary portraiture, iPad dreams and hysteria works, which are playfully concerned with the public and the private, outrage and reaction, as well as robotic prothesis and questions of authorship and legacy.” viaHudsons website

I would personally recommend following this work and try your best to see the work in person. Like all the brilliant artists I get to communicate with, they are all worth seeing, especially appreciating them more in person. Henry’s work will leave you in wonder, inspiring you to get creative. You will marvel at this work, I can not say enough positive things about it. Well done Henry and of course, your team too!

Nothing to do precisely with his work but here is something for us all to think about and to take away for this week. From the movie Dead Poets Society: “The human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

I hope that resonates with you today. Thank you for joining us again this week! Please comment and share whilst also visiting his website for more information.

HENRY HUDSON IN HIS STUDIO

Who are your favourite artists? What makes them stand out to you? 

What is the process for your paintings? 

There not paintings , it’s anything but painting really. I use iPad paintings, plasticine, scagliola , etchings, watercolours, tapestries  to interpret painting or ideas about mark making.

01:02:04 – 01:02:05, 2020; plasticine on aluminium board, 70 x 50 cm

What is your preferred medium you use? 

I’d prefer to be an oil painter but I have questions in other places. Annoyingly painter friends say I’m a painter and I’m not, yet anyhow.

20:24:38 – 20:24:39, 2020; plasticine on aluminium board, 150 x 180 cm

What is your opinion on the art market at the moment? Do you find it a challenging industry? What do you like about it? What do you dislike? 

I don’t have an opinion on it anymore. I used too and it’s a waste of energy. You turn into a tabloid newspaper. I’m at an age where I couldn’t give two fucks about anyone or anything apart from my staff and studio and the art I want to make and the support I can give to fellow artists. By either collecting it or connecting them with my contacts.

The walk my brother and I took, 2019; Coloured pigment, petroleum jelly, calcium salts, chalk, encaustic, paraffin waxes, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium board, 150 x 107 cm

Do you have any advice for artists wanting to be represented by galleries or any advice for any one beginning their art career? 

Just keep going the train will reach its destination. I rushed into so many things and the art suffered and I suffered. Take it slowly. It will happen if you work hard and stay focused. Try and do one thing well.

Frank, 2020; plasticine on aluminium board, 42 x 32 cm

Did you study at art school? If not, where did you study and what? 

Chelsea, city and guilds and Saint martins. But none of art school is important. Learn to draw, good or badly, and you can literally do anything. I’m not kidding.

06:07:45 – 06:07:46, 2019; plasticine on aluminium board, 140 x 180 cm

What inspires you in your work? 

Nature is always the backdrop. The conditions that make us human, flawed, tradgic. Love, death. Vices. Everything that it means to be human. The face. The costumes. The masks. I’m like ratty from wind on the willows. Loves the scenery of the country but has to be in the city for the drama.