“Panoramic View of John Hull :: Selections from New American Paintings”
About the Exhibition
For the past 20 years, Colorado painter John Hull has concentrated on humanity and its role in the universe. "I've tried to make people who are complex, and not one-dimensional, to create paintings which describe the accidental quality of human experience, the helplessness of men and women in the world and their ability to manage nonetheless," Hull says. His latest series of paintings "Pictures from Sonny's Place" exemplifies this context fully, creating a narrative structure through palpable subject matter rarely conveyed in the medium of painting.
Hull's latest images portray characters and situations found in a remote junkyard known as "Sonny's Place." Though culled from the artists research and observations from a location in Wyoming, the construct and elements captured could exist anywhere in the United States. Influenced by William Faulkners "Sanctuary" as well as the Robert Mitchum film "Thunder Road," each work is a snapshot of lives and territory unknown to the common observer, yet detailing common issues of morality and necessity that confront us all. Though seemingly banal, as each image unfolds in Hull's nuanced style a greater narrative formulates that could potentially encompass the whole, the backstory being filled in by the imagination of the viewer. Whether Hull is documenting something real or imagined is in question, but there is no doubt that each image embodies a subtle spirit that is the driving force in many distant lives.
Hull is one of the most consistently honored and masterful painters living in Colorado. Besides being featured in the current issue of New American Paintings, Hull's was recently named the 2004 recipient of the Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize for Painting from the 179th Annual Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at New York City's National Academy of Design. His solo exhibition at + gallery was preceded by a career retrospective at the Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana in November of 2004.
