There is something beautiful about approaching the public lives of people without the typical infrastructures that we see all around each day. Sam Hewitt's paintings touch on that serene moment, where people wander in unison, in harmony, with only their shadows following or guiding them to their destination. His newest solo show, Infraculture,opening September 7 at Dynamite Gallery in Brighton, England, looks at the ways people live so close to one another but have an autonomy and personal rhythm that gives them a unique personality.
To understand the meaning of the word "Infraculture," the artist notes: The hidden, unacknowledged information about how to live in a society. The rules for breaking the rules. The belief that something is true even though the evidence for it has not been examined. Ideology. The plumbing and cables behind the walls of our behaviour. The reason the world is being destroyed.
Hewitt’s paintings are in themselves coping strategies to deal with the overwhelm of input. Paintings of frozen moments in a crowd in which the subtle exchanges of information between people can be examined. He then projects his own assumptions onto these exchanges and titles the works accordingly. This nudges them into representations of his internal workings as well as those of the urban populace. Almost as if there is no distinction.
