Harlan Hue (born 1994), Is an American artist currently working in Los Angeles and New York.

 

Hue draws inspiration from his upbringing in Chicago, where he often spent hours alone drawing, working on puzzles, while observing his mothers quilting practice.

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Hue went on to graduate from the inaugural class of Chicago's first public high school for the arts, Chiarts, which led to receiving several scholarships to further his studies at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where he would earn a BFA in illustration.

 

After graduating in 2017, Hue began a career in commercial art working for Overall Murals, where he created large scale hand painted murals for companies such as Nike, Levis, and Yves Saint Laurent.

 

 While painting for Overall murals, Hue was offered a full time position at Louis Vuitton as a painter and artisan, where he currently creates custom art for the brand, specializing in the painting and design of hard-sided trunks.

 

Working in commercial art for the last 7 years has greatly informed Hue's practice, allowing him to build a unique set of artistic skills with a variety of mediums and materials.

Now shifting his focus from commercial art to fine art, Hue aims to repurpose the knowledge he gained from his previous work experience, translating it into a more intimate fine art practice. 

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Hues artwork focuses heavily on memories either from childhood or past and current relationships, depicting portraits of those close to him in a format that resembles the quilts he grew up watching his mother make. Often pictured seated, wearing their own fashionable garments, the figures embrace a sense of belonging and pride, while maintaining a sense of duality, contemplation, and wonder thru distorted figurative work.

 

First painting on Belgian linen, Hue then cuts the material into pieces, only to sew the pieces back together, dissecting, stacking, and reconfiguring the portrait in an attempt to mimic and understand the many complex layers of the human condition.

The process itself, a form of acknowledging and understanding others, is just as informative and crucial as the finished result.

 

Hue recently began to exhibit his work with TLALOC gallery in Los Angeles, IRL gallery in New York, and Van Der Grinten gallery in Cologne, Germany. These exhibitions featuring Hue's work has been his first venture into the fine arts space as he aims towards the possibility of a career as a fine artist, something he continues to strive for through gallery representation, artist residencies, and grants.