UK street artist Hush will exhibit for the first time at Corey Helford Gallery, with new works. The show is titled “Unseen” and melds tagging, graffiti and the female form in 24 layered canvases as large as 64″ by 44″, in which female figures’ eyes are tagged or erased. The show also includes abstract paintings of mixed media, screen-print paintings, pencil studies, minimal pieces, screen prints and sticker collages on wood. The artist explains:

The presence of the female form within my work is important as a symbol and for me it symbolizes beauty and the power of sexuality and supports the perception of how the graffiti should be viewed.

The opening reception is May 18, 2013 from 7 to 10pm. The show will be on view through June 15.

About Hush:

Absorbing cultural and visual influences from his extensive travels, Hush found a striking connection to the mark making, tagging and graffiti he had encountered along the way. He observed each ephemeral mark as evidence of another’s action or creative expression, despite its gradual degradation over time. He found the remnants of previous marks left on the ever-changing street surfaces to be progressive where accidental layering often evolved into something beautiful. Hush seeks to capture the beauty that years of decayed tagging can create and magnify the value of these actions through his contemporary paintings. The artist’s canvases mimic city walls once adorned with wheat pasted images, tags and painting that overtime are repeatedly layered upon image after image. The technique for his highly involved mixed-media pieces is an amalgamation of painting, screen printing, spray-painting as well as layering and collaging of graphic novels and old comics. The culmination of the pieces is brought about as the diaphanous layers are strategically torn away to reveal the ultimate vision “letting the canvas and marks take their own path.” The central focus of Hush’s work is images of iconic and pop art renditions of the female form, particularly of the geisha and the anime manga. As the artist manipulates his canvases he finds figurative elements and allows the form to emerge to the surface. It is here that the artist confronts and debates the power, innocence, beauty and cunning of feminine sexuality.