'DAYS OFF' 2009
35 x 70 cm - Spray paint, acrylic paint, ink and wire on canvas
In 2004 Hudson graduated from The University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree specializing in sculpture. Hudson's style is a mixture of street art, abstract expressionism and modern art. Predominantly working with spray paint, acrylic paint, ink and permanent marker on a variety of surfaces such as canvas, wood, cement, stone and metal.
Bio
Born 1983 in England, Erik Hudson was raised by his hippy mother who is also an artist. As a child Hudson grew up surrounded by artists and musicians who inspired him to be creative and focus his attention towards studying Fine Art his entire life.
'STRADIVARIUS' 2014
800 x 400 cm - Wall mural, Acrylic paint
Wall mural on display at Aristides Instruments - Hendrik Figeeweg 1, 2031 BJ Haarlem
“ERIK HUDSON’S PAINTINGS ARE A PRIMITIVE EXPRESSION OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
Erik Hudson’s paintings follow a familiar aesthetic, one that is bound up in contemporary culture, graffiti art, Neo-expressionism and Primitivism, his pictures rooted in the work of Basquiat, Enzo Cucchi and other painters of the 1970’s and 1980’s who came out of the New York scene.
Like his predecessors Hudson’s paintings are a direct expression, there is no medium through which they are distilled before they hit the canvas , their energy culminates as an immediate response, without care, a punk attitude that has been an integral part of 20th Century art. A desire and overwhelming need to smash down the barriers of accepted aesthetics and styles and forge ahead to create a new lexicon that belongs in the present – textures that echo industrial decline and a dystopian future, strong bold colours, words empty of meaning that drip off the canvas and familiar symbols re-appropriated from advertising images – and is drawn from music and fashion, art and literature. An amalgam of contemporary ideas and personal memories, dreams, emotions and experiences.
However, for all the aesthetic familiarity a looming shadow dominates Hudson’s paintings. That of the anthropologist and author Carlos Castaneda – who I last read 25 years ago while in art college – who become famous after publishing ‘The Teachings of Don Juan’ in 1968 and who went on to write a series of books about his training in Shamanism – under the tutelage of a Yaqui “Man of Knowledge” named Don Juan Matus – and a group that he called the Toltecs. It was a stream of consciousness that opened up many young eyes to alternative culture, hallucinogenic drugs and a philosophy of life and remains a defining influence on Hudson’s paintings.
copyright ©2017 · mutantspace ”
'THE PURPLE PICNIC' 2009
20 x 30 cm - Plastic soldiers, glue and spray paint on canvas.