City Inn Art Exhibitions

City Inn Westminster: March - May 2010, 24 hours a day.

The Inevitable Series
Max Hague

Ten years ago painter Max Hague was an artist in residence at HMG Paints in Manchester where he experimented with a new method of making paintings relying on the chemical nature and behaviour of paints rather than a paintbrush in his hand. This experimental turn in his work stemmed from an interest in “making art he could not make” - a direct response to observing a world he found overly man-handled and in a vulnerable state because of this.

Ten years later in the autumn of 2009, Hague completed a second residency at HMG Paints and City Inn Manchester culminating in an exhibition of over 30 paintings throughout City Inn Manchester. This exhibition has now travelled to City Inn Westminster.

Hague holds a strong Buddhist belief in letting go and this belief extends into his artistic practice. In letting go of conventional compositional control of his paintings and allowing paint to shift, drip, settle and bubble with only the gentlest of interference, Hague allows for an inevitable composition to arise. The result is a painting with miniscule detail and overall feeling of unstoppable flowing churning – a cosmos-like abstraction.

In keeping with an experimental and open-minded spirit, Hague takes a generous and democratic position in terms of where people should encounter his artworks favouring public spaces over seemingly hierarchical art only spaces. Because he uses industrial paints, the artworks can be stroked and some of the pieces in the exhibition are kinetic allowing a viewer to rotate and choose an orientation. In past exhibitions Hague has experimented with ethical pricing systems asking a would-be collector to offer him the equivalent of one-week of their wage for one of his artworks since each painting takes approximately about one week to complete in his studio. I am pleased to present this exhibition born out of a commitment to releasing control and placing trust in inevitabilities. At a time when new approaches are required to adapt to ever changing and ever challenging circumstances - experimentation, democratisation and creativity are undoubtedly useful tools, as is taking a few minutes out of your day to stop, look at work of art and see where it takes you.

Thank you to Max Hague for his energy, sincerity and hard work put into this exhibition. And as ever, thanks to the City Inn Westminster staff and City Inn Head Office without whom these exhibitions would not be possible.

- Meredith Gunderson, Curator

_{City Inn runs a changing programme of art exhibitions across our 6 UK cities. Exhibitions are set within the public spaces of the hotels and open to view 24 hours a day. Each exhibition is curated by Hotel Art Curator, Meredith Gunderson.}
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City Inn Art Exhibitions