CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM AmberRose Hulme

Predominantly working with pastel on paper, Amber-Rose Hulme creates evocative, photo-realistic representations of the urban and industrial everyday. Interested in the idea of graffiti as a visual form of conversation between the many individuals who contribute to these constantly evolving murals, Hulme uses light, texture and the inevitable nature of decay to draw out ideas of social circumstance and the experience of a personal or cultural identity. Laneways, back alleys and abandoned industrial sites, each emptied of human presence, serve as the many backdrops for a melancholy awareness of the transience of human endeavour, and the beauty of the graffiti that enlivens the spaces we inhabit.

In this new exhibition, Hulme takes to the laneways of Melbourne for source material. Once deplored, graffiti and street art have become synonymous with Melbourne’s laneways, and celebrated as a unique cultural byproduct of the city. While in this context graffiti may have lost some of its illicit nature, it has reached new levels of visual sophistication and design. And the qualities that have always drawn Hulme to it remain unchanged. Namely, the evolving nature of a graffiti ‘gallery’ or wall mural where constant additions and deletions are built up in layers as different practitioners make their unique contributions.
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Marguerite Brown, MAArtCur 2019

Words once spoken are lost to the air. Graffiti, though less temporal, is similarly fleeting. At its creation the crisp, sweeping lines shout loudly over each other, yet as time passes the character of the buildings themselves add their voices to the crowd. As new voices are added the dialogue grows and earlier voices are silenced. With these works I seek to capture a single moment of the conversation between both the landscape and the words of many. The highly saturated areas of the image are intended to accentuate the increased volume of chatter created by the layers of graffiti on a previously quiet scene.
Artists Statement, Amber-Rose Hulme

After initially pursuing a career in genetics, Amber-Rose Hulme shifted direction in 2011 to pursue a career in fine art. The last few years have been busy ones for Hulme, who has been a successful finalist in numerous awards including the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award (2019), the Muswellbrook Art Prize (2019, 2018, 2015), Bendigo Art Gallery’s biennial Paul Guest Prize (2018), the Rick Amor Art Prize (2016), the Stanthorpe Art Prize (2016), the Hutchins Art Prize (2015) and the Sunshine Coast Art Prize (2015).

Hulme first exhibited with FLG during our annual emerging artist exhibition, Exploration 15, and was subsequently signed on to the gallery stable in 2016. Her artwork Tranquil Neglect was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ballarat for their permanent collection in 2016. She held her first solo exhibition with the gallery in 2017.

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