Hurvin Anderson

TimeOut

Annabel Downes

Hurvin Anderson

"The paintings do something similar for the viewer as they do for Anderson: they hold you between places"

The Telegraph

Alastair Sooke

Nostalgic visions from a modern-day Constable

"In Anderson's work, the natural world is almost ominously abundant. Greenery seems to suffocate man-made structures, which often appear dilapidated – like ruined temples in a jungle. The sense of melancholy this generates is offset by the pleasure that Anderson evidently derives from manipulating paint. His compositions – some of which flirt, ingeniously, with abstraction – are awash with attractive blotches and drips."

The Guardian

Eddy Frankel

This haunted, hazy, beautiful show is like stumbling through someone's memories

"The paintings are haunted by slavery, colonialism and clashing identities because he's haunted by those things, because the Caribbean is haunted by them, and so is Britain. But, crucially, it's also absolutely beautiful painting. Anderson combines geometric, modernist blockiness with washes of dripping, gestural colour, and smashes free-hand figuration into minimalist grids."

The Independent

Mark Hudson

Hurvin Anderson at Tate: a standard-bearer in British painting

"If I was to say that Anderson is our best hope for a standard-bearer for the great British tradition of figurative painting represented by 20th century greats such as Bacon, Freud, Auerbach and co, that might make him sound conservative. Very far from it. The linking factor is a commitment to developing his craft, painting, that is quite humbling."

The Times

Laura Freeman

these barbershop paintings are unmissable

"The Barbershop paintings are the best of this uneven Anderson retrospective at Tate Britain. And they are wonderful. In colour (those pinks, greys and blues) and almost classical discipline (very still, very frontal), they seem to owe something to Giotto, if Giotto had gone in for painting black barbershops in the Midlands."

Financial Times

Jackie Wullschläger

Hurvin Anderson's melodic landscapes steal the show

"For their subtlety and open-ended vision, Anderson's landscapes are for me the show's joy. Another, equally valid journey through this retrospective is autobiographical and sociological."

The Observer

Laura Cumming

Vivid memories of home

"But the curators could have given us many more of the ever-changing Salon series and far fewer of the Caribbean country clubs at further remove from the eye behind wire fences and security grilles. All that feels hidden there is money, not the dreams or memories or hopes of past lives that haunt the best of Anderson's work."