from the artist

inventory is a series of small gauche paintings evolving around household purchases. I enjoy the banality of everyday, essential items, such as bread, orange juice and onions. 

Often I come home from the shops and paint what I put on the table, as it is in front of me, sometimes I rearrange and select items for the sake of composition. I like to stack items on top of each other, similar to putting objects in a shopping basket. From hard to soft and from big to small. 

Apart from groceries, each Monday I buy fresh flowers from the farmers market, which are depicted along with a few other miscellaneous items, like exercise equipment and novels.

While painting, I’m thinking about the decisions that we make when buying things - political, lifestyle and aesthetic decisions, that in reality are a privilege many people cannot afford, particularly in times like this. 

When I don’t like a painting, I paint over it, cut it up and use the pieces for small abstract collages along the way.

I have a habit of sneaking out in the afternoon to secretly buy ice-cream or chocolate at the corner store. These short journeys offer moments for reflection and I often contemplate the intersection of art and commerce, production methods, the origin and value of things, the global and the domestic and how the world around me influences and enables the art that I produce.

— Manfred Hubmann