Hurvin Anderson

A painter best known for his abstracted landscapes, Hurvin Anderson has created a body of work that distills his experience as a second-generation immigrant. Often starting with a photograph as a foundation for conjuring memory and drawing inspiration, Anderson creates works that draw on his personal history as well as fictional people and places, frequently juxtaposing scenes of poverty and luxury within a single canvas. Motifs of barriers run throughout his work, from security fences to landscaping designed to prevent trespassers, further instilling in his work a sense of displacement and a feeling of not quite belonging. Merging elements of abstraction and figuration, Anderson draws the viewer’s attention not only to what is visible, but also to what has been muted or omitted.

Anderson has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Tate Modern. He has also been included in group exhibitions at notable institutions including Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery in England.