Hume emerged with a generation of young British artists who graduated from Goldsmiths' School of Art, London, in the late 1980s. His output ranged from early rigorous geometrical abstracts, a highly acclaimed series of door-based images, and later exuberantly colourful figurative pictures.
In 1988, Hume took part in the seminar Freeze exhibition curated by Damien Hirst in a disused building in London's Docklands. Amongst other commendations, he is often labelled, as one of the most prominent YBA's to rise to fame in the early 1990's alongside Glenn Brown, Mat Collishaw, Julian Opie, Sam Taylor-Wood and most notoriously Damien Hirst.