We speak to Harry Rüdham, as he unveils his first solo exhibition, Lubberland, a rich, intricate show highlighting the young British artist’s talent, on display at Grove Square Galleries from 17th February – 2nd April.
Hot Tub, 160×160
Lubberland is the Swedish word for ‘Cockaigne’ – a fabled land of opulence, decadence and hedonism, where pleasure is always within arm’s reach. The Swedish translation of the word was popularised in the 1685 broadside ballad An Invitation to Lubberland.
I ask Rüdham how this obscure word came to be the title of his first solo show. “I think it was because of the sea shanties that were going around on TikTok,” he laughs. “[Lubberland] is a big staple in pirate mythology, trying to find Eldorado, this land where they can just stay forever and drink nonstop, living out their wildest fantasies. There’s a lot of ideas on sexual freedom and freedom of sexual orientation.” No pressure then, for the young Mr. Rüdham, to have his first solo show live up to what are, quite literally, other-worldly expectations.
Studland 150x110cm
Fall 150x75cm
Lubberland opened on Wednesday night at Grove Square Galleries in Fitzrovia, and will run until 2 April. Packed with the rich colour and detail you would expect from its title, the 19 works on display are plentiful and abundant.
Photos do not do justice to the texture and intricacy of Rüdham’s art. Each work features countless cut-out miniscule silhouettes, dotted across the surface, varying in density, position and colour. At first, they look like birds, flocking together in flight patterns atop varying coloured skies. At closer inspection, it becomes clear they are all people, cut painstakingly with a scalpel and then layered onto the surface. This gives the art a multi-layered quality, that simply painting the silhouettes could not achieve.
“It starts to become a meditation,” Rüdham explains, of the process behind his work. “Hours and hours of little hand cut-outs of masking tape, that I have to stick on top and paint over, and then I peel them off.
“I listen to a lot of music and you can sort of go out of your body while you’re doing it. It’s like doing a really long sudoku in a way.”
Sapphire 120x90cm
Sprinkled Through the Foliage II 120x90cm
The inspirations behind Lubberland vary massively. From old masters like Pieter Bruegel the Elder – who famously painted ‘The Land of Cockaigne’ – and Hieronymus Bosch, to Henri Matisse, to the Bauhaus artists; even Hot Tub Time Machine and German nudist beaches have directly led to works in Lubberland. It is an eclectic mix of size and shape, all brought together through Rüdham’s unique, meticulous method.
Rüdham graduated with a first in BA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2019, but a key part of his university experience came in Berlin, during a year abroad studying at the Universität der Künste. “The biggest influence [from Germany] which really carried on was going to these nudist lakes. Just seeing that whole culture over there. Because, before, I’d only associated nudity with my art from life drawing inside of a school. [In Germany], it felt like I was in a mythical, classical type of painting.”
The influence of nudist lakes is clearest in the painting ‘Hot Tub II’. A pale blue watering is hole is surrounded by hundreds of little people, the majority of whom are naked, and many having sex. “You can see a sort of Kama Sutra going around,” says Harry.
Hot Tub II 160x160cm
Both ‘Hot Tub’ and ‘Hot Tub II’ are standout works in Lubberland. Able to be shown at 360 degrees, they each centre around a deep blue hole. Where the silhouettes lounge/fuck on a yellow beach in the second instalment, they float endlessly, aimlessly, down into the depths in the first ‘Hot Tub’.
Although other works from the show are perhaps more indulgent than ‘Hot Tub,’ it is the work that best incapsulates the worldly transformation necessary to reach Lubberland; the time machine through which you must tumble to reach the distant land.
Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ is another direct inspiration behind Lubberland. Rüdham’s ‘The Garden’ is the largest canvas in the exhibition, and is his direct interpretation of Bosch’s iconic work. Rüdham’s version is scattered with his own delights, his miniature figures in abundance as they stretch across the 2 metre canvas. ‘The Garden’ is, in its positioning and its value, the show’s centre piece.
The Garden 154x200cm
Most of the works were created in 2021, and Rüdham explains, “I first started really overlaying figures like this because I was more yearning for contact.” Beforehand, though working with the silhouettes, they were spread out over vast expanses of colour, that still provide the backdrops for Rüdham’s work. But in lockdown, he began to overlap them, and even if they are not all in the compromising positions found in ‘Hot Tub II,’ they interact with each other.
I think this is what gives his characters a bird-like quality. I was not the first, Rüdham assures me, to mistake the people for birds, and it’s because they move in a way we never see people do. They flock. They move in waves, migrating all over, no one person ever the sole focus. Humans move this way too, I suppose, we’re just always zooming in too closely to see it.
