In his socially critical practice, Henry Hudson creates heightened worlds of texture, colour, and material form, working with plasticine, wax and resin reliefs, oil painting, ceramics, sculpture, and digital mediums such as iPad paintings, UV printing, 3D printing, and scanning.
A Rake’s Progress
From 2010, Hudson began making his seminal plasticine interpretations of William Hogarth’s 1775 masterpiece ‘A Rake’s Progress’. Hudson’s initial rendition, ‘A Rake Revisited’ (2010) more directly interprets Hogarth’s riches to rags series. This colourful plasticine on board interpretation was exhibited at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, home to the original Hogarth series.
In the later series ‘The Rise and Fall of Young Sen – The Contemporary Artist’s Progress’ (2014), Hudson provides a 21st-century interpretation of Hogarth’s tale, shedding light on excess and addiction in contemporary London.
Jungles
Hudson’s plasticine ‘Jungle’ works, dense sculptural representations of colourful, otherworldly jungle scenes, further the artist’s use of the unconventional medium. Within these strange and crowded landscapes, the thickness of the plasticine gives a sense of weight to the dense vegetation and humid climate.
Contemporary pastel and neon colours, further enhanced by the incorporation of fluorescent paint, emphasise the surreal nature of untouched natural spaces, in which alien-like plants jostle for light and oxygen in the thick undergrowth. Referencing a photoshop composite of various pictures of plants, Hudson has been adamant to remind viewers that these are not real places he has seen. He explains, ‘This is about me in London, trying to escape on a daily basis.’
Ceramics
Beyond the familiar medium of plasticine, Hudson has created a series of hand-coiled ceramic pots in collaboration with his brother Richard WM Hudson. These painted vessels bear some resemblance to carnivorous plants, akin to what is presented in the ‘Jungle’ paintings or sacred cups for shamanistic, ayahuasca rituals.
UV Print Portraits
Since 2019, Hudson has made drawings with his iPad, including a comprehensive array of portraits of friends, fellow artists, dealers, collectors, and celebrities. Not seeking to make NFTs, Hudson prints out these digital works with a UV flatbed printer. He boasts, ‘I’ve been able to merge the digital onto a physical object, making the portrait totally unique with no blockchain needed.’
Horizon Line
Inspired by travelling in empty planes during the pandemic, Hudson’s ‘Horizon Line’ paintings (2021–2022) or ‘Scapes’ present minimalist renditions of horizon lines in the sky. Around the gleaming cut of the horizon, a range of colours—orange, red, green, and blue—emanate in increasing or decreasing tonalities, going from light to dark or dark to light. Each Rothko-like composition is richly textured with swirling and linear patterns impressed on the thick surface.
A departure from earlier, more figurative and chaotic compositions, these paintings engage with the idea of a world that is bigger than us—beyond the horizon and the culture of the time.
