Opening this week at Tate Britain is the first major survey exhibition of British artist Hurvin Anderson.
Bringing together around 80 works, the show spans the artist’s entire career, from formative work to the present day, including a room of never-before-seen paintings.
Hurvin Anderson (b.1965) is known for works exploring identity, memory and the Caribbean-British diaspora. Thanks to the artist’s profoundly atmospheric use of composition, and his deep-rooted engagement with traditions of British landscape painting, Anderson is recognised as one of the most important contemporary painters of his generation.
Through colour-drenched landscapes and interiors, Anderson’s work weaves back and forth between the UK and the Caribbean, reflecting on his experiences of belonging and diaspora, evoking a sense of ‘being in one place but thinking about another’ (HA).
The artist was the first member of his family to be born in England, after his father emigrated from Jamaica in 1961. Anderson’s upbringing in Birmingham, as well as his time as an artist-in-residence in Trinidad, were determining influences on his practice. His depictions of specific sites and experiences from his youth often appear to slip through space and time, becoming dislocated. The exhibition will reflect this by looping back and forth, following a thematic journey through the artist’s 30-year practice.
The exhibition features key series such as Ball Watching (1997-2003), Barbershop (2006-2023) and Peter’s (2007-9), bringing them together with work previously unseen in the UK including Anderson’s monumental Passenger Opportunity (2024-5), inspired by two murals painted by Carl Abrahams in 1985 for Jamaica’s Norman Manley International Airport.
Hurvin Anderson opens at Tate Britain on 26 March (continuing until 23 August 2026). The exhibition is supported by The Parker Foundation and the Huo Family Foundation with additional support from the Hurvin Anderson Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Patrons and Tate Americas Foundation.
For further information: tate.org.uk
Image: Hurvin Anderson at Tate Britain Installation View. Photo Tate Photography (Larina Annora Fernandes)
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