Alex Hubbard - Contemporary Evening Sale London Tuesday, July 1, 2014 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich

  • Catalogue Essay

    Alex Hubbard’s roots are as a video artist, making table-top movies that record physical creation and destruction. His videos have been described
    as ‘moving paintings’, and his paintings have a close relationship to his video work. As with his videos, Hubbard stresses the process of “the act of
    making, or the labour of creating things. Art-making specifically”.

    Rockaway One oscillates between two and three dimensional form, between sculpture and painting. The detritus of everyday life is dispersed
    across the grey monochrome surface. The painting is reminiscent of the work of Barry Le Va or Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings in their shared
    scattered aesthetic. For Hubbard, tactility and immediacy are central aspects of his art-making. Both of these qualities are enhanced by his
    choice of materials – resin and acrylic – which together create glassy pools of colour and fix the myriad plastic objects to the surface. Resin
    is also a quick-drying material, which compels Hubbard to work quickly thereby reducing his conscious decision-making and heightening the
    importance of gesture. The uneven surface of paint and the random dispersal of objects, together create a highly dynamic work of art.

    Hubbard commented on the importance of this choice of materials and the extent to which they affect the meaning of the work: “Working with
    quick-drying materials was a way to take a lot of the decisions out of the paintings; it was a way to make the gesture into the creation.” (Ellen
    Mara De Wachter, Interview with Alex Hubbard, 15 March 2013, New York, NY, www.ellenmaradewachter.com)

    Hubbard has created a visual cacophony in this work, the relationship between elements is unstable and the work is redolent with surface
    tension. Hubbard’s work, Rockaway One, playfully explores tactility, materiality and chance to create an artwork which expresses the energy
    of the artist expended through the process of art-making.

28

Rockaway One

2011
found plastic objects, resin and acrylic on canvas
208.7 x 179 cm (82 1/8 x 70 1/2 in.)
Signed, titled and dated 'A Hubbard 2011 "Rockaway One"' on the overlap.

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 

Contact Specialist
Peter Sumner
Head of Contemporary Art, London
psumner@phillips.com
+44 207 318 4063

Contemporary Evening Sale

London Auction 2 July 2014 7pm