Youde’s visual style takes from the colourful, vibrant work of Hundertwasser, Willem De Kooning, and Joan Mitchell and the stylistic direction of Basquiat, Bolaji, and Douillez to bring forth a unique visual language that he uses to deliver his visions. Taking from his immediate surroundings; the objects he uses, the things he sees, the music he listens to, all these factors play a part in building up the daily routines that make up one’s life. These experiences are recalled through photographs, sketches, or memories that are translated onto canvas where they are reworked and developed. The process is a see-saw journey of construction, destruction, and embellishment that leads to the creation of abstract compositions.
The artist aims to undermine and destabilize the static qualities of the images to create a sense of movement. Working organically, responding to the emerging and changing dynamic of the story as it is revealed on the canvas. The use of oil bars, spray paint, and acrylics allows the artist to work quickly and freely. The multitude of layers across medium, line, colour, tone, and marks enable the artist to capture the sensory experience of a moment in time, elevating the unremarkable and ordinary into something remarkable and extraordinary. Ultimately, these small, insignificant items and moments often make up a large part of our existence, an existence we usually take for granted

Callum Youde (b.1995) is a Glasgow-based abstract painter and recent graduate from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. He has exhibited in numerous group shows in Scotland and his work is widely collected across the UK.