“Eyes Right”

New Mixed Media Work by Tate Hudson

ON EXHIBIT UNTIL MAY 18th

Uncle Frank had a ’71 Malibu. Dad took it and painted it red. As far
as I could tell, everything had to be red. Mom taught me to drive in a ’73
Monte Carlo. Always over the line or on the shoulder, that Chevy destroyed
everything in its path. It was a now extinct shade of green, and no match
for Randy Mowder’s metallic blue ’68 Nova or Tim Guzek’s pearl white
Galaxie 500. Guzek had his license in the ninth grade and he’d roll up,
just before first bell of course, with seven or eight of us packed into that
boat. The whole school would watch in envy as we piled out of his glorious
machine. First car was an old hand me down, another Malibu, aptly
named “Grey Ghost.” I left that heap in a ditch one night, never to be seen
again.

Just as the Grey Ghost careened into the ditch, the custom car has
slipped into metaphor…a passing piece of nostalgia that dissolves into a
different breed of vessel. It carries the weight of color and garish power. A
fabricated heritage. A tradition of muscle and hubris with each layer of paint
burying another disgraceful historical epoch. Customs define culture.

Color, dress and ceremony provide initial modes of impression. In
the context of this work, color allows me to focus a conscious memory.
The paint has been stripped away from the car and littered across the
landscape. A new environment is peppered with red for native Americans,
plots of black for slaves and shades of yellow for Vietnamese. I follow the
contours and shapes as they blend and bleed into greed and prejudice.

The celebration of the custom car is a ceremony as powerful as the
seeds of bigotry. And yet, the dizzying reminiscence created by the passing
candy apple red camaro still cranes my neck. In the work, I am able to
assemble awareness, and the onset historical amnesia is foiled. Through
this process of understanding, subjugated cultures become prominent and
the car’s power becomes more vulnerable, less vital, yet still beautiful.

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Tate Hudson, a self taught artist, was born on Portsmouth Naval Base, and spent his childhood bouncing between the rural/backwards hills of West Virginia and the culturally mixed/progressive leaning Norfolk, VA. His unsettling upbringing coupled with the constant exposure to new influence and style helped shape the method in which he works today. Hudson currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA, and finds the current comparable to Savannah, GA where he spent eight years immersed in the creative culture.

Hudson’s process involves pouring paint on paper and manipulating form and color.  Select pieces are then meticulously assembled on wood to create fantastic landscapes and surreal environments.  In most cases, discarded images are added to render scale and narrative.In practice, careful attention is given to reuse and waste.  The source paper seems to be an endless roll of brown, discovered in a junk store, to which all diluted, acrylic paint is applied.  Most of the wood panels are salvaged and cut to size by the artist.  Images are discovered in discarded books, ads, posters, etc.The organic, automatist approach is an abstract means to a narrative end.

Exhibit images courtesy Ian Mesa-Jonassen

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