Steven Hull
Installation view, 2016
Koa Moonlight Hull, The Lost Pirate Ship. 2015
Wood, canvas
16 1⁄2 x 17 1⁄2 x 11 1⁄2”
(KMH16 01)
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable! 2015-16
Acrylic on wood, on painted wood base: 21 x 40 x 20”;
base: 37 x 40 x 20”, Sculpture with base: 58 x 40 x 20”
(SH16 01)
Maybe You’re Lonely. 2015
Oil and ink transfer on blue paper, framed
33 1/8 x 25 7/8”
(SH16 02)
Moving Liquid. 2015
Oil and ink transfer on blue paper, framed
25 7/8 x 33 1/8”
(SH16 03)
My Eyes Are Full, But My Face Is Empty. 2015
Acrylic on canvas, framed
95 3/8 x 10 ft 10 3/8”
(SH16 04)
Watching Every Night. 2014
Acrylic on wood and plastic, metal wheels
89 x 13 ft 5 1⁄2” x 28”
(SH16 05)
I Long to Be With Them. 2015
Oil and ink transfer on paper, framed
33 5/8 x 47 1/8”
(SH16 00)
Installation view, 2016
Installation view, 2016
I Spent a Lot of Time Looking at the Blue. 2015
Oil and ink transfer on paper, framed
44 x 33 5/8”
(SH16 06)
Warm Calliope. 2014
Acrylic on wood, lights, CD player, speaker, on metal wheels
48 3/8 x 91 3⁄4 x 18 1⁄4”
(SH16 07)
I Don’t Want to Go. 2015
Acrylic on canvas, framed
10 ft 5 1⁄4” x 94 1⁄2"
(SH16 08)
She’s Losing That Inner Flame. 2015
2-part: oil and ink transfer on paper, framed, 47 x 33 5/8”
and acrylic on wood, 44 x 19 7/8 x 17 5/8”
(SH16 09)
She’s Losing the Light Fast. 2015
Acrylic on canvas, framed
94 3/4 x 10 ft 5 1/2"
(SH16 10)
Installation view, 2016
Installation view, 2016
Is the Moon Bright Enough? 2015
Acrylic on canvas, framed
95 1⁄2 x 10 ft 10 3⁄4”
(SH16 11)
Untitled (bald head). 2015
Acrylic on wood
48 x 42”
(SH16 12)
Untitled (male masked head). 2015
Acrylic on wood
48 1⁄4 x 43”
(SH16 13)
Untitled (female masked head). 2015
Acrylic on wood
47 x 38 1⁄2”
(SH16 14)
With Your Hemlock on the Rocks. 2015
Acrylic on canvas, framed
94 3⁄4 x 10 ft 5 3⁄4"
(SH16 15)
All I Want to Do Is Forget. 2014
Acrylic on wood, metal wheels
68 x 11 ft 2" x 26"
(SH16 16)
Untitled. (Clown with hairy chest). 2015
Acrylic on wood
47 1⁄4 x 42 1⁄2”
(SH16 17)
Untitled. (Clown with long nose). 2015
Acrylic on wood
47 7/8 x 40”
(SH16 18)
For his 11th solo exhibition at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Steven Hull’s presentation is part seaside carnival, part ocean voyage. Although this exhibition is mainly focused around large scale abstract and figurative paintings, sound is also very crucial to the viewers’ experience. The show also includes a number of large scale wood sculptures and oil paint transfers. As seen in previous exhibitions by the artist, the sculptures address the paintings combining themselves into captivating tableaus creating new dialogues and conversations.
Hull is established as an engaged and multi-faceted artistic and curatorial practitioner. His diverse interests and methods have led him to undertake a varied range of projects, which at times have included long-term collaborative efforts with other artists, musicians, and writers resulting in ambitious traveling shows and exhibition catalogues. These efforts are further exemplified by the Los Angeles artist-run non-profit space founded by Hull, Las Cienegas Projects, which has a curatorial program emphasizing experimentation and communal involvement. This dynamic approach and stylistic diversity come through in Hull’s latest body of work. The artist continues to explore the various ways that painting and sculpture overlap, where a flat image may appear to be dimensional, and a sculptural piece can feel image-based. By extension, we are led to consider the ways in which our notions of these delineations are contingent, where received logic can be broken down by simple contextual shifts.
Steven Hull received his BFA and MFA from California Institute of the Arts, the latter in 1997. In addition to having exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, he has organized numerous publications and exhibitions including Blind Date (1998), a catalogue of 31 artists and writers’ collaborations; I’m Still In Love With You (1998-99), an album and catalogue in which visual artists and writers respond to the 1972 album by Al Green; Song Poems (2000-01), a catalogue with 3 CDs of 43 original lyrics, songs and album art contributed by numerous writers, artists and musicians; and Nothing Moments (2007), a publishing and curatorial project consisting of 24 limited edition books and over 400 original drawings. Hull lives and works in Los Angeles.
by Kristen Osborne-Bartucca
Like a modern-day Ishmael, Steven Hull spent the last few years sailing and seeing the watery part of the world. Hull’s enthusiasm for his new hobby unmistakably influenced his current exhibition of painting, sculpture and sound installation at Rosamund Felsen. The nautical and the carnivalesque, two fitting bedfellows in their evocative and lonely surrealism, dialogue with each other in Hull’s work; he contrasts the sense of adventure and whimsy commonly associated with both milieus with the melancholy and anonymity that are perhaps even more pervasive.
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by Christopher Knight
New paintings, sculptures and a group of compelling drawings by Steven Hull are eccentric evocations of the risks, rewards and penalties of going out beyond one’s usual limits.
For his 11th solo show at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Hull goes out to sea. Anchored by sculptures of a sailboat and battleships loosely reminiscent of Chris Burden’s work, the show also features paintings and drawings on carnival themes. They recall early Modernist images of life as a tragicomic circus of love and loss, stylish dignity struggling with inelegant humiliation.
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