Hugh McCarthy

Artist's Statement


These New prints engage a notion of 'Organized Living' and comments on commercialisation and its dialogue with the surrounding wilderness. Yet there is a harmony to be found in this play of opposing parts as they fuse together to communicate McCarthy's aesthetic interests. This unique style moves from landscape to abstraction with energetic colour, fanciful doodles and sophisticated line drawings and by juxtaposing disparate elements, such as biomorphic and mechanical forms, masculine and feminine elements; he establishes a sense of tension throughout.


These new works contain a complex array of signs, symbols, colours, and shapes, a celebration of freedom-aesthetic, commercial, sexual or otherwise. His paintings represent not only the sleek image of contemporary life but also the very spirit of post-modern capitalism. Bright and artificial, the convergence is both a retailer's utopian vision and, to the critic of consumer culture, a dystopian nightmare. Hugh's vision is celebratory and appalling in equal measure.