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The Bridge of the Nose, Oil on canvas, 2011
CONTACT – adam@wastelandnumberseven.com
ADAM HYDE
Artist’s Statement
My work maps out a territory inhabited by marginal/displaced/disconnected characters, whose presence in the world is somewhat circumscribed by carnivalesque settings. On this website is to be found a large selection of paintings, drawings, animation and poetry, always with a strong narrative component, nearly always hidden from view, These narratives are of a country of imprecise borders and liminal positionings I have consequently named “Wastelandnumberseven”. The paintings here are selected from over 5 years of continuous painting. As a collection they betray the erratic shifting of styles I was compelled to produce over that same period, from conceptual drawings containing bits of videotape, nails and torn up essays, via an ill-conceived (though still somewhat attractive) attempt at painting with clay, to a series of cute and not-so-cute anthropomorphic dogs. But looking back over those older paintings, there are amongst them patterns that emerge, imagery which repeats, and which continues to burn a hole within me.
Here then is an insight into that strange land I call Wastelandnumberseven, an ambiguous and pervasive title which has managed to find its way into every description I make about my work. Its meaning is very varied yet the more I use it the more its meaning is required. It is a contradictory term, and not a very good one, for the more I attempt to close it down to a specific meaning for you to understand, the less it really works for me as a relevant description. So, put as simply as possible, Wastelandnumberseven is my way of remembering who I am, or who the work is; a land, a wasteland, which is where a lot of these imaginary scenes, and scenes of other artists I admire, take place.
The scenes themselves, the details of who or what is doing which to whom does not interest me so much as capturing those fleeting moments within such stories, which are both simultaneously specific and eternal. Brief moments are elevated, spread out on a canvas, and treated as if sacred. I think in that sense, the influence of film and photography is here most visible. For me now, the idea of a dog playing piano, or a legless man standing on his head, seems less interesting, almost gimmicky, compared to a woman looking at her hand, pushing a different hand through a different head of hair, or a man contemplating an apple. But I cannot deny that part of me which requires a fantastical element, an otherworldly image, a blue dog for instance, almost as a side note to be taken for granted whilst allowing the altogether grander story of a thought passing through a human face to play out.
My work also takes on aspects of the environment in which it is made: from September to December 2010, I worked in Bucharest, Romania, in an old abandoned communist factory, and my work was significantly influenced by the paradoxes of the post-communist architecture and atmosphere of that city. Presently, my studio is a greenhouse in a woodland area in the West Midlands, and before that, as a fine arts student, I was based in central Manchester.
EDUCATION
Sept 2006 – June 2009, Manchester Metropolitan University, BA (Hons) Fine Arts
Sept 2005 – June 2006, Dudley College, Foundation in Art and Design
Oct 2004 – March 2005, Light House, Wolverhampton, Introduction to Animation
June – Sept 2004, Light House, Wolverhampton, Traditional Animation
Sept 2001 – May 2003, Halesowen College
PUBLICATIONS
May 2011: Collaboration with Mihaela Precup, Tataia magazine – Link
March 2011: Featured work, Kuretake – Link
February 2011, Featured Artist, Arts Admin ‘E-digest’ – Link
January 2011, Featured Drawing, Hero of Switzerland – Link
January 2011, Cover Drawing, [Inter]sections, Issue 12 – Link
July 2010, Cover Drawing, [Inter]sections, Issue 11 – Link
April 2010, Cover Drawing, [Inter]sections, Issue 10 – Link
March 2010, Selected Poetry, Blankpages, Issue 20 – Link
April 2009, Authorship in the films of Andy Warhol, [Inter]sections, Issue 5 – Link
EXHIBITIONS
July 2011, Solo Exhibition, Dudley Library
April 2011, Group Exhibition, Trans-Siberian Arts Centre
March 2010, Pretty Vacant Touring Show, Group Exhibition, Wolverhampton University
January 2010, Artspace, Dudley
December 2010, Volte Galleries, Wolverhampton
November 2009, National Open Exhibition, Chichester
May 2009, Manchester Metropolitan University, Degree Show
April 2007, Mercury Art Prize, Covent Garden, London, Finalist
August 2006, ‘Open’ [Insertspace] Islington Mill, Manchester, Group Exhibition
June 2006, Dudley College, Foundation Course Graduation Exhibition
March 2006, Group Exhibition, Lighthouse Centre, Wolverhampton
PRIZES
November 2009, The James Wentworth-Stanley Prize
April 2007, Shortlisted, Mercury Art Prize
Contact – adam@wastelandnumberseven.com
