Art is an opportunity to have a conversation.
The mountains of the Canadian West is where I became a person, grew comfortable with myself. Around Golden, Field, Glacier, Lake-Louise. But I retain an awareness, comfort with the larger world, my fore-mothers were Viking. After a fine, though harsh education in northern Europe, I searched out the Canadian West on purpose, it’s my chosen place.
My artwork explains who I am I’ve come to see, quite straight forward I hope, with a fine rough edge of the underground – the rebel. I have no time for the pretentious nincompoops protecting the galleries and “explaining” idiotic ideas like Duchamp’s flipped over urinal parading as art. Don’t get me started, most of the work Andy Warhol created in his Art Factory would never see the light of day today – mostly due to copyright infringement charges causing him to go broke. More concerning to me though was his decisively crappy craftsmanship and low quality materials (but then what do you expect from someone who stole others newspaper pictures to create his work).
My work is ground in craftsmanship and quality, based on materials good for hundreds of years. Not interested in having my name in the news because my work is falling apart.
I obsess about elegant lines – as sometimes also found in superb tattoos. I love searching for the re-curve, the expressive, economy of line. Is it influential? Don’t care. Will it appreciate? Don’t care. Something grabbed my attention, caused me to reach for my pencil, that’s why it exists. My work and I are not clamoring for admiration. Not asking for permission. But it would be good if you had an opinion, allowing yourself to answer your own question ‘what do I feel?’.
You know about the slow food movement, but did you realize there is a slow art movement? Well I’m a champion of it! I take weeks sometimes, redrawing to get my pencil sketch just right. After that, I close the book on it for about a year, at that time I’m no longer so attached to the work. That allows me to more evenly evaluate and choose the pieces worthy of investing the time to paint.
Find out about new work that I am creating, and some background on the process, by signing up for my monthly newsletter “byHugo Art Insider”, on the menu-bar above.
Thank you for your interest,
Hugo