PinchukArtCentre presents the first solo exhibition by the British artist Gary Hume in Eastern Europe. The show entitled Beauty includes more than 60 paintings, drawings and two sculptures.

Gary Hume’s painting seduces often by being beautiful. Starting his artistic practice with his famous “door paintings”, life-size representations of hospital doors, which he made from 1980s until 1993, later researching themes like a human body, portrait, nature, birds, flowers, etc. With high-gloss household paint on aluminium sheets he creates cool and slick fields of colour defining the surface. In general Hume’s practice is characterised by this unique chose of material combined with the strategy of starting his painting from existing images which through a lengthy process of abstraction are rarely traceable within the final work.

Eckhard Schneider, General Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “Gary Hume is a painter who reflects Beauty in the most sensitive way, in colouring and shaping human beings and nature. His exhibition is a wonderful view into a new world.”

The show offers a complex view of Gary Hume as an artist caught up in the tension between beauty and concept. The show combines some essential older works with recent work groups such as Rainbow, Anxiety and the Horse and several newly created paintings and sculptures such as the series Bikini, never shown in public before, as well as other drawings and paintings.

It is located on the 4^th floor and lasts from 4 February to 1 April 2012 in the PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine. Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 12 am to 9 pm. Admission is free.

Gary Hume (born in Teterden, UK, in 1962) is a leading British artist living and working in London and upstate New York, USA. His work was included in the 1997 Sensation exhibition, a touring show of the Saatchi collection which visited London, Berlin and New York. He was nominated for the Turner prize in 1996 and represented the UK in the Venice Biennial of 1999. In 2001 he was made a Royal Academician. His solo shows include São Paulo Bienal (1996), Venice Biennale (1999), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1999), The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (1999), Fundação La Caixa, Barcelona (2000), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2003), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004) and Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2004).

The exhibition will be open from 4 February to 1 April 2012.
Viewing hours: Tuesday-Sunday: 12:00 – 21:00
Closed – Monday
Admission is free

PinchukArtCentre is the largest and most dynamic private contemporary art centre in Central and Eastern Europe. It is dedicated to fostering artistic education, creation and appreciation in Ukraine. The PinchukArtCentre is a leading international centre for contemporary 21st-century art. It provides a sustainable contribution to the cultural participation and emancipation of Ukrainian art and society. And it gives a significant contribution to the cultural dialogue between East and West, and between national identity and international challenge.