Artists Index: Easton Hurd

Easton Hurd 
(b. 1938, Cascade, St Anne, Jamaica, lives and works in Birmingham.) The youngest of twelve children Hurd trained as a carpenter, coming to England in 1959 to work as a shot-blaster in the Witton area of Birmingham. In 1964 he started working at Ansells Brewery in Aston, working there for 17 years until it closed in 1980 after industrial action. He subsequently found a new job working in security at the University of Central England (now Birmingham City University) in Perry Barr and, in 2000, transferred to the School of Art in Margaret Street. Being in the building and seeing the students” work rekindled his interest in art and he soon began painting. Many of his paintings are based on photographs taken himself. Others use found images from magazines or TV. Ill health has meant he has not painted for a few years, but he hopes to start again very shortly. This is his first exhibition in a public gallery.