Hugo Canoilas

He allows nature, and the elements – water, gravity, and air drying – to merge and enter the work in a process that could be seen as mimetic of osmosis and symbiosis; a correlation between paint and natural fibres, between the artist and what is happening in front of him.
The works of Hugo Canoilas allow the natural forces of expansion and retraction in the paint to shape new forms. This fruitful relationship between painting and being painted, or being touched, initiates a renewal of Canoilas’s vocabulary in painting. In the artist’s view, there is a new capacity to fix points of beauty or broken beauty, and other significant moments which occur in the studio. This could be the way a colour mixes with another, an ephemeral action, an accident, a bold gesture, or decision, or even the stains and marks on the studio floor, which retain existence in the mind of the artist.

“Legacy imagemaking practices enjoy a new lease on life, as reenactments salvage discarded artistic idioms and spaces become theatrical. His installations, paintings, videos, and performances are surprising in their themes as much as in their technique, which is always sumptuous, unorthodox, and distinguished by a cool composure.” (Brigitte Huck)